


i seek to find you (in every lifetime of mine)

by reminaissance



Series: Parállaxis [5]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: But also, Canon Compliant, F/F, Immortal Elsa, Incest, Paris (City), Post-Canon, Reincarnated Anna, Reincarnation, Set in the 1950s, Sibling Incest, Slow Burn, Unrelated Anna/Elsa (Disney)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reminaissance/pseuds/reminaissance
Summary: "How extremely complex, yet how simple it is, to meet again in another life. To die and be born again only to have fate pull at the strings of one's soul in order to have it coincide with another's. And what is the matching of two souls if not to keep each other's company in life, over and over again?"Inspired by the song "Les Feuilles Mortes" by Yves Montand.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Anna/Elsa (Disney)
Series: Parállaxis [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727911
Comments: 33
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This occurred to me as I was listening to Yves Montand's "Les Feuilles Mortes" on my long ass drive to Mexico lol. However, it was also deeply inspired by my good friend gracepago's reincarnation comic 'Morning, stranger'. So this is, in a way, a homage to the incredible fanwork she's brought to this fandom—It is also pretty self-indulgent tho ngl. Special kudos to my buddy Volks for providing a bombass [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ReWULWWEfPoAWIs3hWsC6)  
> that I kept listening to over and over again as I wrote this. Other special kudos to Dani for peer pressuring me into splitting this thing into chapters ("you see they invented little things called chapters, it’s really innovative"). And big thank you to my bby for putting up with me and my writing, even through the distance.

_Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle, les souvenirs et les regrets aussi. Et le vent du Nord les emporte dans la nuit froid de l'oubli. Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié la chanson que tu me chantais. Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment. Et la mer efface sur le sable les pas des amants désunis._

_Dead leaves are picked up by the shovel, the memories and regrets as well. And the north wind carries them away in the cold night of oblivion. You see, I have not forgotten the song you used to sing to me. But life separates those who love each other. And the sea erases on the sand the footsteps of lovers torn apart._

—Yves Montand, "Les feuilles mortes."

**_*_ **

_Paris, France - 1952_

The gentle sound of pattering rain against cobblestones is the only thing that her ears register as she makes her way down Rue du Louvre that night. Puddles gather in the hollow spaces of the ground, reflecting the warm hues of the lights that line up the path of a nearly empty street: glimmering, indecipherable shapes that move in time with the droplets of water that touch them; never quite still.

Elsa secures the hook of the umbrella in her hand as a gust of wind brushes past. She pulls at the collar of her mink coat even though she isn't cold, and exhales a softened breath that becomes vapor in the air. The corners of her lips twitch at the sight. There is warmth in her still; a part of her that is still human. Like a reminder of the things she hasn't lost, no matter how much she wishes she could trade them all just to get Anna back.

She walks alone, as she has for quite some time, to the small apartment she started renting out of Mme Bernot's building after arriving in Paris two weeks ago, after deciding that the feigned comfort of her homeland was no longer enough to make up for the memories that haunted her aching heart. Because when time appeared as vast as the sea she once viewed from the fjord of her home, life, as it was, was no life at all. Because everything Elsa did, everything she saw and heard and smelled, reminded her of the life she once considered to have a beginning and an end. Because when the Queen of Arendelle died of old age and the kingdom set up a monument in her honor, and she went on to live in the memories of everyone who ever loved her, Elsa lost the anchor that kept her to the ground.

So she began to wander, like a ship lost at sea; borrowing from her sister's sense of adventure, searching for a meaning big enough to cover all the lives she was meant to live. Until she made it here on a whim. From Copenhagen, to Amsterdam, to Paris. She settled in the city without truly knowing why she'd chosen it, the same way she'd decided to follow that voice so many decades ago: a fearless streak of instinct.

Sometimes she wondered if Anna would have followed her here too, but she knew the answer before she ever got to finish the thought. Anna would have followed her to the ends of the world if she had asked and Elsa, too, would have followed her everywhere.

If only mortality hadn't drawn its line.

Elsa touches the delicate chain around her neck as she continues to make her way down the street. The rain goes on, and so does life in this city that she can't quite consider home just yet. She stops at the intersection where Rue du Louvre becomes Montmartre and cuts the thread of her thoughts. She is meant to cross the street, meant to catch the métro on the next block—the one that usually stops at 7:09 PM and drops her off in Batignolles at 7:21 PM—. She'd have to walk three more blocks after that, enter Mme Bernot's building and walk up the two flights of stairs that lead to her small, rented apartment.

The light changes before her but the only thing that Elsa registers is the memory she's being drawn to. She remembers almost laughing at the sight of her apartment the first time she saw it—a nervous, ironic laugh—because never would she have imagined that she would be renting out a space in Paris, a hundred years later, immortal and alone. But Mme Bernot had stood next to her, quiet but proud of the room she said she'd decorated herself, speaking in a French that Elsa had a hard time understanding. A language she only remembered bits and pieces of from her secluded childhood lessons, and later on, from the foreign relations she'd had to establish as queen. The language of love, Anna used to call it, even though she spoke very little of it as well. Random words that she would speak at random times. Always to Elsa. _Only_ to Elsa.

Because French is the language of love, she'd say.

A car passing by drives her out of her stupor. She remains standing on the same corner, the rain incessant on its rattling against the fabric of her umbrella. The light has turned to red once more and she can no longer cross. But as she waits, frustrated at her own wandering mind, something catches her eye in the opposite side of the way she's supposed to go.

Down a street she has never walked, the innocuous entrance of a bar beckons her. Strangely so, for nothing about its façade is unique nor dazzling. A lonely bike rests against its front wall while the single street lamp that stands nearby casts a light on the entrance from which no one enters nor exits. Yet, like gravity, it pulls her in. She crosses the street as if in a trance, the heels of her shoes hitting the cobblestones barely noticeable below the sound of the rain. When she reaches its front window she finds that it is only mildly crowded; people, mostly men, fill up the space and line up a bar by which they talk animatedly, drink and smoke. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just another Parisian bar.

As soon as she enters the scent of cigarette and liquor fills her nostrils. The sound of conversations envelopes her while a few pairs of eyes do a quick survey of her presence. She scans the room as if looking for something; perhaps someone; perhaps a reason that will explain why she's here. But nothing stands out, and Elsa presses through the crowd with the same grace that has followed her all these years.

She reaches the bar and sits perched on a stool, conscious of what she must look like right now: a woman alone, without company in tow, sitting in a room that comprises mostly men. She knows the leers she is drawing to herself because she feels them piercing through her consciousness, sharp like daggers aimed to undress her. Yet, Elsa sits up, unmoving and dignified. She remains unfazed in a crowd where lively conversations are as copious as liquor tipping over the rim of a glass, and focuses on the menu instead. It is messy, handwritten in a French she can barely understand. But maybe, she thinks, once she manages to figure out these scribbles that remind her of her sister's notes she might be able to discover why she was so heavily drawn to this place.

Maybe, just maybe...

" _Pas français?_ "

Elsa looks up, and the sight pulls the air out of her lungs.

There is a girl standing on the other side of the bar, wearing khaki pants and a smeared, white button-up blouse that is tucked in and rolled up at the sleeves. But it is her face—the gentle curves of her cheekbones, the freckles that spread across her skin and those eyes, almost green under the warm lights of the room—that has left her speechless.

A thin layer of frost has covered the menu she holds and Elsa can barely conceal the gasp that escapes her. It takes her a few seconds to gather herself even though the girl is still standing there, looking at her with curiosity, tucking a strand of copper hair behind her ear the same way her sister used to do. There is a myriad of thoughts going through Elsa's mind, drowning her almost all at once, and all she can manage to do is cover the thawing menu and lift up her shaking hand to place her index finger just above her thumb: " _Un petit peu_ ," she mumbles.

The girl smiles, and Elsa's gaze follows the motion of her lips; the same lips that in another lifetime must have covered every inch of her skin. She feels a rush of heat travel up to her cheeks and she looks down in embarrassment. It doesn't matter who this girl may or may not be now. She is still nothing but a stranger.

Her struggle goes unnoticed, however, because the girl's attention has shifted elsewhere, to a Navy Sailor—a Yankee, she'd heard someone call them once—who's asked for another round of gin for him and his friends. He speaks to her in slurred English, and Elsa tilts her head at the possibility that she may speak some of it. She herself had to learn it eventually, no matter how often she'd thought of it as a cold and detached language. Then again, she'd had no real reason to use it for more than common formalities. She wasn't a talker, never had been. Not a hundred years ago and certainly not as of late, but at least before she had her sister who would hang onto every word that came out of Elsa's mouth as if it were the last.

And the same way that Anna used to listen to every word she had to say, so too does Elsa watch the girl's every move. She pours the gin swiftly, smiling politely at the men's slurred comments but not once humoring them with a single response. Elsa finds it odd that a girl, let alone a girl as young as she looks, would work a bar by herself.

When she is done pouring the drinks she puts the bottle of gin away, turns around and walks straight back towards Elsa.

" _Alors?_ " she asks once she's close again. Elsa blinks a few times. She is not ready to order. She wasn't even looking at the menu.

Elsa fumbles with it, distracted and dumbfounded still by the situation. Her eyes scan a few words but they read none of them. Instead, she looks up again and asks, "Do you speak English?"

The girl smiles coyly before she mirrors the gesture Elsa used only a few minutes ago. " _Un petit peu._ "

Elsa bites her lower lip to keep herself from grinning. Something about this short and silly exchange has her heart racing in a way it hadn't in so long.

"I'll have a Merlot, please," she finally says.

Seconds later and an empty glass is placed before her. The girl pours the red wine while the close proximity of the action causes Elsa's heart to race again. It can't be, she keeps thinking, but the longer she stares at the girl the more she is convinced that fate isn't just playing a cruel trick on her. Those eyes... she could recognize them anywhere.

"Do you work alone?"

"No," the girl answers, smiling, "I work with my uncle." She reaches down below for a white towel that she uses to wipe the surface of the bar. Elsa wonders for a brief moment if she is using that as an excuse to stay here, but she calls herself delusional for this.

"Do you like it? Working here, I mean. Do you enjoy it?"

The girl tilts her head and says, "Is one supposed to enjoy work?" There is a tone in her voice that doesn't go unnoticed. It is optimistic despite its meaning—secretly playful, like so many of the things Anna used to say.

"I suppose not always."

There is a pause; a brief moment of silence in which Elsa catches sight of something swarming in those turquoise blue eyes of hers that is gone almost as fast as it came. The girl doesn't say anything after this. She simply smiles at Elsa and walks away to another patron calling for her.

Elsa drinks her wine slowly as she watches her work around the bar. At some point a man comes through from the back. He is certainly older, perhaps a relative given the familiarity with which they work together. He appears to be kind, if perhaps a little boisterous. He beams at everyone he lays his eyes on and speaks loud French with people Elsa assumes are his regulars. Next to him, the girl would appear almost shy, but Elsa suspects this is only a façade. She looked into her eyes after all. They were nothing but fierce; full of life.

All around her people come and go, yet Elsa stays well after she's finished her glass of wine. She is waiting for something. Another answer perhaps; another sign. And she'd like to think she finds it the moment the girl approaches again to take her empty glass away.

"It's good?" she asks, eyeing the glass.

"Yes," Elsa says, then tries: " _Merci._ "

There is a smirk this time, and Elsa swoons despite herself.

"Can I ask... How do you know English?"

"Many Americans stayed after the war," the girl explains, glancing back at her uncle before she takes a step closer towards Elsa. "Did you stay also?"

"I don't come from America."

"Where do you come from?"

"It depends who you ask."

She grins: the most precious thing Elsa has seen in decades. "A mystery then."

Elsa laughs a little. "For now, we can call it that."

The girl falls silent and something in her eyes keeps Elsa from looking elsewhere. There is a sense of familiarity in them, so faint and unfathomable that Elsa thinks she must be imagining it. Yet, she feels drawn to them the same way it used to be so long ago, back when she could spend hours looking into her sister's eyes, counting her blessings every time they glinted with another laugh. Those eyes, so fierce and vulnerable in another lifetime, suddenly bring Elsa back to the warm summers at the castle gardens; to the nights spent under the northern lights; to the promises and the confessions and the love professed. Because suddenly it doesn't feel like they are two strangers in a bar.

And suddenly, Elsa realizes, she knows exactly why she chose Paris.

"Will you be here tomorrow?" she dares ask.

"Will you tell me about the mystery tomorrow?"

Elsa bites her lip. "Maybe."

Her gaze falls momentarily to an empty spot on the bar before she looks up through her long lashes. "Then yes," she responds lowly, " _Maybe_."

She can settle for this, Elsa decides. A maybe. It sounds far better than a never. So she bids the girl a good night, unable to keep herself from smiling as she does so. Perhaps she looks like a fool, just another silly stranger passing by. But Elsa can't contain it the same way she can't contain her heart from fluttering inside her chest. She cuts through the crowd slowly, looking back only once to find the girl watching her. She sees her nod and Elsa does the same. There is so much she wishes she could have said tonight; so many opportunities she wishes she could have had to unburden herself off a past that has been too long to cover a single lifetime. Because a mystery doesn't quite cut it and a single night in Paris doesn't seem like long enough time.

_Because I was a queen once,_ she thinks, _and then a legend. And I had a sister, who looked exactly like you._

_***** _

_Arendelle, Norway - 1849_

Sunlight seeped through the nooks and crooks of the branches like warm specks embedded into the sky. It was a nice afternoon. One of many. Elsa knew how long they lasted because each summer she looked forward to them, like a ritual set to repeat itself the same delightful way over and over again.

She waited for Anna—as she often did—reading a book borrowed from the library. Dickens this time, heavily detailed and awfully immersive. So immersive in fact that she never once registered the faint whistling tune that kept drawing closer, nor the sound of dry leaves being softly crushed by her sister's soles.

"Hey, stranger."

She looked up to find Anna standing a few meters away, carrying a burlap bag over her shoulder. She wore trousers that day rather than a dress. "They're constricting", she'd said the first time Elsa found her wearing them around the castle. "Trousers make it easier to be a queen." Elsa had only laughed as she hooked an index finger on their hem and pulled her closer. Sometimes she looked like a stable boy, her dear sister.

"I brought us some goodies," Anna announced, plopping herself right next to Elsa. She set the burlap bag to the side before pulling out of a pocket of her vest a crumpled linen napkin that held a handful of chocolate squares. They were Elsa's go to snack when she was a queen and needed a pick-me-up; the same snack Anna would often sneak out of the kitchen when Gerda's privy eyes weren't looking—the same way she most likely did now, queen or not.

Elsa set the book to the side to allow Anna some space to rest her head on her lap. She then took the chocolate handed to her with gratitude, and sighed when its sweet taste melted in her mouth. Heaven: that is what afternoons like these felt like.

"How did your royal duties go today?" she asked.

"Boring," Anna lamented, "Is work _ever_ fun?"

"Sometimes," she mused, lightly tapping her sister's nose. "But not always."

Anna scrunched her face at this but focused on her chocolate instead of responding. She could watch her all day, Elsa thought, with her hair tousled by the summer breeze and her eyes full of life.

"What?" Anna asked, a smile playing on her lips.

Elsa shook her head. "You're adorable."

"Careful now," she warned, "I am a queen. I have a reputation to uphold."

"Reputation or not. You're sweet and charming, and I love you."

"You think that now," Anna said, "But when I am old and cranky you won't think the same way."

Elsa brushed her cheek with the back of her fingers. "How could I ever run out of tenderness for you?"

**_*_ **

_Paris, France - 1952_

She arrives earlier the next day, with high-strung nerves and excitement jumping at her throat with each quickening beat of her heart. She spent the night tossing in bed, unable to catch the sleep that only teased with a vague sense of tiredness. Because the longer she spent awake, the more she thought that she would be back in here only to find out that she was hopelessly dreaming of something that did not exist.

But when she enters and finds the same girl standing behind the bar, wiping the dust off a bottle of liquor, how could Elsa bring herself to believe that this is just a dream?

She steps further in, allowing her high-heeled footsteps to announce her entrance. There is music in the room today; a vinyl record softly weaving through the air stained with the cigarette smoke of a lone drinker. How mundane it all looks under the lazy afternoon light coming through the window. It takes away from the essence of a dream Elsa kept irrationally clinging to. It makes it real.

The girl's gaze travels up to meet hers before a tiny smile flourishes across her face. There is that same pull Elsa felt last night, inexplicable but perfectly clear, drawing her closer until she finds herself standing at the bar.

"You came," the girl says.

Elsa smiles. "I said I would."

She takes a seat a few feet away from the only other person at the bar. He's paid her no mind—he is far too gone into his drink.

"It is quiet today," she observes.

"You are early," the girl responds, and Elsa takes it as an obvious explanation. She wonders how many more hours it will take for this place to fill up again.

She ends up ordering a Merlot—same as last night—and as the wine is poured into a glass and she watches the liquid settle into a stillness, she begins to realize how strange this must be for the girl standing across from her. A woman, alone in company, coming to the bar two days in a row seemingly with no other desire than to speak with her. Shouldn't that be curious enough to incite questions? Or is this... thing, this pull of invisible strings, a mutual sensation?

"So." The girl props her elbows on the bar. "Have you come to tell me about your mystery?"

Elsa finds it amusing that there seems to be no need for small talk. "I did say maybe," she teases, "so perhaps we can wait a little bit more for that."

The girl sighs stubbornly. "There is one thing you must know about me," she states with feigned seriousness, "I do not have a lot of patience."

Elsa bursts out laughing, happy beyond comprehension.

And to think that she had settled on never feeling this way again.

"Just trust me on this. You can ask me anything else you'd like to know."

"Anything?"

"Yes."

Two men walk into the bar and the girl reluctantly goes to greet them before she has the time to ask Elsa something. She is away for a while: another man has followed shortly after the first two. She moves back and forth pulling bottles out of cases and glasses out of cabinets, busy enough that she doesn't stay in one place for too long but with enough time that, every now and then, they catch each other's eyes.

Elsa is nearly done with her first glass of Merlot by the time the girl finally comes back with a question.

"Have you ever been to Paris before?"

"I have. Once. Very briefly."

"Why did you decide to come back?"

A pause. "I have been... trying to make sense of certain things in my life. And I came to Paris because I had a feeling that it would be good for me."

"And has it been good?"

Elsa smiles. "I think it has." She downs the last of her wine after this, and doesn't need to ask for another because the girl has already pulled out the bottle to pour more. Something tells her that if she weren't working right now she would be joining her with a glass of her own.

"Do you like it?"

"The wine? It is very good."

"No," she chuckles, "Paris."

"Oh... I have not seen much of it yet. I don't even know where to start."

The girl nods pensively while Elsa reaches for her glass and takes a sip. They're interrupted once more by the men occupying the bar. Another round, some of them want. One of them is asking for her uncle. He will be down soon, the girl says, polite albeit curt. It makes Elsa wonder how often she's had to deal with leery men who've had a little too much to drink before the thought makes her reach for the wine again. She feels the burning liquid run down her throat just as the girl comes back with another question: "Do you work?"

"I've recently found a job at the Louvre.

"What do you do there?"

"I work as a curator."

"So you like art."

"My sister," she says, the word falling from her lips before she can help it. "She used to love art."

The girl tilts her head. "Used to?"

Elsa closes her eyes for longer than a blink. She feels a wave of inconsolable sadness wash her anew. "She passed. A long time ago."

"I am very sorry."

"Don't be," Elsa murmurs.

A hand reaches forward after this, hesitant on its way to graze the back of Elsa's fingers in a gesture of comfort, but lingering once the first contact has been made. It ignites something in her, settling deeply inside her soul. Because there are certain things in life which are incapable of concealing the truth and for Elsa, this single touch tells her everything she's been aching to know. A molten realization that engulfs her the moment her gaze sinks into the girl's and finds, for the first time in over seventy years of yearning, that same flicker of life; the soul of her sister looking right back at her.

"I—"

" _Chouchou._ "

They both turn in time to find the same man Elsa saw last night holding a case of empty beer bottles. He flashes a broad smile in Elsa's direction before he begins to speak to the girl in a French so fast that Elsa only catches a few words out of the entire thread. He then walks away, leaving the girl with an apologetic expression on her face.

"I must go for a little bit."

Elsa nods in understanding.

"I don't know your name," she adds.

"Elsa," she tells her, not missing the way her eyes flash with something akin to recognition. "What is yours?"

The question hangs in the air far more than it should.

"Anna," the girl responds. "My name is Anna."

She leaves after this while Elsa is left wondering if this is fate giving her a second chance. Hope swells in her, rising up to meet her racing heart, and she holds onto to it the same way she has held onto the memories of her sister all these years: bittersweetness interlaced with a vehement sense of longing. How extremely complex, yet how simple it is, to meet again in another life. To die and be born again only to have fate pull at the strings of one's soul in order to have it coincide with another's. And what is the matching of two souls if not to keep each other's company in life, over and over again?

Soulmates. Elsa thinks of this word with fondness. Because Anna was more than just the greatest love in her life. More than just her sister; more than just her partner in crime. She was her soulmate. Elsa knew it in life, and she knew it at death's threshold when she watched her sister take her last breath and felt a part of her soul leave with her too.

She drinks the last of her second Merlot in silence, watches as the bar slowly fills up until the music that once weaved freely through the air is nothing more than a faint tickle in her ear. Anna returns at some point but is too busy helping her uncle to approach her. It isn't until Elsa begins to feel as though she's overstaying that she comes closer again.

"I should get going," Elsa tells her, pulling a handful of francs out of her purse.

"I have one last question before you go."

"Of course."

Anna bites her lip. "Will you be here tomorrow?"

Surprised, Elsa watches her for a moment. She can feel herself swooning and the smile on her lips blossom into a grin. "Do you want me to be here tomorrow?"

There is no need for a worded answer. Elsa can see it in her eyes.

_***** _

_Arendelle, Norway - 1843_

The reading room remained dark except for the warm light cast by the fireplace. Its flames flickered, sprouting from the burning wood as though reaching up to the ceiling in yellow and orange hues that snapped, crackled and spat out sparks that soon faded in the air and became nothing. Elsa sat, entranced by it all, waiting for Anna to say something.

But silence met her ears for moments on end, until a gust of wind touched and rattled the large window in the room. She looked up to find her sister standing next to it, unmoved, the pale light of the moon cast over her in one simple, ethereal image. Too perfect for this world, she'd often thought. Her loose hair cascaded down her back. Her crown sat discarded on the desk like a trinket. It was just Anna tonight. Not a queen, but her sister.

"Immortal," she said, her soft voice piercing through the silence in which they were suspended.

"That is not... exactly the word Yelena used."

Anna turned around. "But that is what you are."

She didn't respond.

"So what happens next?"

Elsa slowly left her place by the fire so that she could close the distance between them. She stood before her sister and ran her fingers delicately down her covered arms. Anna's hands were warm. In this everlasting cold with which she surrounded herself day and night, they brought her comfort.

"Nothing has to happen next," she murmured, "I am still me."

Her sister's eyes glimmered under the moonlight with an overflow of emotions that Elsa could read as clearly as if she were feeling them herself.

"I'm scared, Elsa."

"Why are you scared?"

There was silence. The crackling of the fire. The wind thrumming on the window. Anna's voice: "I feel as if we were being separated again."

Elsa cradled Anna's face with her hands. "I would never let that happen."

"But I'll get older," she breathed, "I'll get older with each year that passes while you'll stay the same and then one day I'll be gone." She stopped, exhaling deeply and raising her hands to cover Elsa's. "Is it selfish of me to think that one day I'll become nothing but a memory to you?"

"You will never be just a memory to me," she said, brushing the skin of Anna's cheekbone with her thumb. "I would trade a thousand lifetimes just to be with you in this one."

Her sister didn't respond. She simply allowed herself to be held while Elsa, too, chose to relish this moment in silence. They leaned into each other until their foreheads touched and they were sharing the same breath. In this castle that once echoed in the cold, desolated years of her childhood, Elsa felt once again at home. Even if she knew, with as much clarity as the warmth that enveloped her the moment she wrapped her arms around Anna's waist, that her sister had always been the reason behind it. Because anywhere she was and anywhere she went, Anna would always be her home.

_***** _

_Paris, France - 1952_

She returns the next day, and the next week, and then the couple of weeks after that. Her visits last as long as the time she spends drinking a single glass of Merlot and sometimes, when she is feeling rather confident, two. It isn't that she doesn't wish to spend more time in Anna's company—she would spend day and night shamelessly glued to her if she could—but rather the fact that incertitude still pervades her actions. She feels like she is imposing herself on the life of a girl who still knows nothing but superficial scrapes of her current self. But the bigger problem is that, as awfully embarrassing as it sounds, Elsa cannot stay away for too long. She yearns to see her, constantly and unreservedly.

And how could she not? How could she stay away when Anna's eyes subtly light up every time she enters the bar as if she were looking forward to these visits just as much as Elsa herself?

She arrives later than usual this time. The bar is hosting its late night patrons—men submerged so deeply in wine and liquor that only a couple of them lift their heads up enough to take a good look at Elsa. Yet, she treads the ground without diverting her eyes away from the girl working behind the bar.

Anna smiles when she sees her. "I thought you were not coming tonight."

"Work," she explains as she removes her princess coat. The collar of her blouse has been left unopened, and Elsa doesn't miss the way Anna's keen eyes glance down at her collarbone before being pulled back up. "We have a new exhibition at the Grande Galerie," she adds.

The girl tilts her head but says nothing.

"What?" Elsa asks.

"Your pronounciation is getting better," she teases.

She rolls her eyes with a smile. A glass of Merlot is placed in front of her before Anna asks, "What is this new exhibition about?"

" _Léonard_ _de_ _Vinci_ ," Elsa responds, punctuating each word with the thickest French accent she can muster.

Anna throws her head back in a laugh. "Very good, very good," she says. "I've read a lot about his inventions. He was a smart and very interesting man."

"Most people recognize him from his paintings rather than his inventions."

She smiles easily. "I don't know a lot about art."

"I can teach you if you want." Her voice comes out sounding more suggestive than she'd expected and she feels the need to hide her blushing cheeks behind her wine glass.

Anna rests her forearms on the bar. "And how does one teach art to a person?"

"You... take them to a museum."

"Like the Louvre," she says, her accent thickening at the last word. Elsa feels herself burn up at this. It is one thing to find the language appealing, but it is quite another to hear it coming from Anna— _especially_ if she's looking at her like that.

"I—yes. Or," she clears her throat, "any other art museum of their preference."

The corners of Anna's lips curl into a mischievous smile. She pushes herself away from the bar before going back to cleaning glasses as if nothing had happened while Elsa goes back to her wine where she can hide her mortification. No other sound fills the space except for the music coming from the vinyl record player Anna says she uses for her personal collection. There is a man near the far end of the bar leaning heavily against it and slurring out words at random.

"Will you be closing soon?" Elsa asks her.

"In an hour or so. We close earlier on week days."

The man slurring his words suddenly lifts his head up, exclaims something unintelligible and goes back to taking his drunken nap. Elsa frowns both in distaste and concern before she looks away. She doesn't get to ask her question; Anna reads it off her expression.

"The men who stay at this hour are more sad than angry," she says, "a small push and they know it is time to go home."

"Are you usually alone at this hour?"

She nods, pauses, then beams. "Do you think I'm scared, Elsa?"

"No," Elsa drawls, relishing the way her name sounds coming out of her lips. "I just worry."

Blue eyes connect with her own. A lot goes unsaid in that moment, but Elsa hears it loud and clear.

"What happens if a man is too stubborn to leave?" she asks with genuine curiosity. She figures her worry is appreciated although unnecessary. Something tells her that Anna wouldn't hesitate to break a bottle on a man's head if it ever came to that.

"I call my uncle."

Elsa looks bewildered.

"We live upstairs," she explains, "This bar belongs to my uncle, but he is an old man and he likes to sleep more than these men like alcohol. Anyway, we do not have too many problems. Only a man or two too heavy to carry out by myself."

"I'm glad," Elsa says sincerely.

A comfortable silence falls upon them as the girl continues to work while Elsa goes back to the last of her wine. She lets the warm liquid sit in her tongue while she recalls an argument she once had with her sister—a rare occasion, she now thinks—. Anna had gone horse riding late at night. She couldn't sleep, she'd told Elsa, but Elsa had still scolded her; called it a reckless decision. "You do it all the time," Anna had grumbled. But they were different, she'd responded. This had angered her sister. She called her condescending and patronizing. Elsa called her obstinate. They threw foolish retorts at each other for a while; empty words that neither of them were able to remember days after it happened.

Elsa finishes her Merlot with a vague sense of longing stirring in her heart. She allows it to wash over her, this never-ending yearning she holds for her sister, before she releases it. It's taken her decades to learn how to do this: to feel and let go.

Anna tells her she needs to go to the storage room in the back and leaves Elsa alone with her drunken companions. Drunken and sad, she thinks. There is only enough time for her to wonder what kind of sorrows they're carrying that alcohol doesn't turn them into jolly little things like the people who've come and gone, but rather gloomy and despondent, with their backs arched and their heads lowered until they're almost touching the surface of the bar. Her attention leaves them, however, when Anna returns carrying a case almost full with liquor bottles. They rattle and clink with every step she takes until she's placed it at the top of the bar with a small grunt. Two men turn their attention towards the noise. One of them asks for another glass of whisky but Anna shakes her head.

" _T'es très bourré_ ," she tells him. He's very drunk indeed. So he mumbles something under his breath, stands up with some difficulty and stumbles out of the bar.

"Three to go," Anna says to Elsa with a playful expression. She pulls every bottle out of the case in one swift motion: one Bénédictine bottle of two compartments. Two of Courvoisier and one of Croizet cognac. Trotosky triple sec. Cointreau. White Horse Scotch whisky. All in all, it takes her only a couple of minutes to arrange everything and have it ready for the next day. She then turns to Elsa who has been looking on rather enthralled, and smiles.

"One more?" she asks. "It's—what do people say—on the house?"

Elsa chuckles before she rises her index finger. "Only one more."

The girl fills her glass up to almost half. Then she takes out another glass, sets it on the bar and pours but a trickle. Elsa catches the faint smell of her scent as Anna sets her elbows on the surface and leans closer. Grabbing it by its stem, she lifts the glass and Elsa does the same. They clink together in silence, without looking away from one another. There is so much depth in this girl's eyes; it is nearly as intoxicating as the wine that courses down her throat.

The deep, red color of Merlot tints Anna's lips for a moment before the tip of her tongue comes out to lick them clean. Elsa watches it all, captivated.

"There is something I have been meaning to ask you," Anna then says.

She nods and waits for the question. Anna twirls the glass by its stem and casts a glance to the side. Two of the three men have struck up a slurred conversation—the third man looks about ready to go—but Elsa goes on ignoring them and after a couple of seconds of stalling, so does Anna.

"Would you like to see Paris with me?" she asks in a gentle voice.

Taken aback Elsa does nothing but stare for a moment. She takes her in, unabashedly, feeling her heart fluttering inside her ribcage. "I would love that very much," she breathes.

**~~~**

She's agreed to meet her that same weekend at Le Consulat, a small but lively café in the heart of Montmartre. She's arrived but a few minutes early, asked for a table outside, and settled down to wait. It is sunny outside, bustling with life. There's the scent of freshly baked bread in her nose and engines in her ears. Automobiles cruise back and forth, their motors rumbling and their tires rustling against the cobblestone streets. On the sidewalks, people cross each other's paths constantly: two nuns, walking side by side and carrying bags full of groceries, encounter a group of rowdy kids chasing after each other—no parents in sight. There seems to be a glimpse of motherly instinct flash across both of their faces; a mixture of fondness and disapproval. Young friends and older couples stroll with leisure, passing by the tables set outside long-standing cafés, many of them occupied by men smoking cigarettes and sipping on their dessert wine glasses. There is music coming out of a window somewhere, a low but smooth tune. Jazz. Elsa takes it all in and thinks of how much things have changed, yet how little. Pastimes have changed. Lifestyles, people and their tastes have changed. But the need for fulfillment remains. That quiet, humming desire to enjoy life in the moments that feel like a standstill in time. That _joie de vivre_ Elsa had heard so much about but had not quite experienced for a very long time.

It suddenly makes her feel like the wait has been worth it.

"Hello, stranger."

Elsa turns her head around at the sound of Anna's voice. She is standing with her hands in the pockets of her gray capri trousers, looking at her with bright eyes shaded by a black beret that Elsa finds utterly charming. She is smiling with a hint of mischievous expectation, waiting perhaps to see Elsa's reaction at the term she's used. She's come to call her a stranger even though Elsa isn't quite that anymore—even though she doesn't _want_ to be, at all.

"Is this what you do on weekends," she asks as she stands up, "Make friends with strangers?" It is the first time she is this close to Anna; the first time she greets her with a proper kiss on each cheek. She feels like a mess on the inside. A fluttering, quivering mess.

"Only special strangers," Anna responds cheekily.

"I should be honored then."

They settle down at the table and, minutes later, they order. Over food and coffee, they share small details about each other—the little things that comprise a whole being. Elsa finds it refreshing to be sharing things with Anna outside of the bar's dim space that smells of cigarette and liquor; of decadence and self-indulgence. It is different. It _feels_ different. And this ease with which they interact, which rules their actions around each other, and their words, and their expressions. It cannot be attributed to mere coincidence. There is something else. Something different from the magic that courses through Elsa's veins. Something that perhaps shouldn't be questioned, but accepted.

When they have finished and stayed awhile, Anna takes Elsa through rue Norvins, using the monumental dome of Sacré-Cœur the same way ships make use of a lighthouse at sea. She points at things excitedly, explaining bits and pieces of everything. She tells her about the buildings whose decayed, painted walls pulsate with history too stubborn to be washed out, all whilst telling her how very, _very_ old they are. "Some are from the past century," she gushes with wide eyes while Elsa smiles and thinks: _If only you knew._

She takes her through Place du Tertre where they spend some time skirting amidst the artists that have covered almost every inch of the square. She lets Elsa take the lead here, at times asking about certain paintings that have caught her attention, always attentive to the things Elsa has to say. She tells her about Van Gogh and Picasso and Monet, and how they all lived here at some point.

"I thought you didn't know a lot about art," Elsa teases.

"When you find out a famous painter has moved to your city," she tells her, "it is called _gossip_."

After a while, they reach the steps that lead to Sacré-Cœur's entrance. Elsa had seen this same view numerous times before on paintings and photographies, on pamphlets of Paris and sketches, but, she thinks, it is always different in person, isn't it? History speaks, and many times its loudest messages come in the shape of its monuments.

"Come on!" Anna exclaims as she reaches for her hand. She takes her up the steps—slower than she probably wants to go because Elsa is not wearing trousers but a dress—never once letting go. Her hand is warm and soft. It makes it hard for Elsa not to trip over her own two feet.

They move through the crowds of people who stand and sit idly until they reach the last landing. Anna stops there, smiling from ear to ear, looking at Elsa from under the beret that she has now pushed slightly back. She turns around and takes Elsa's gaze with her.

The view of Paris from where they stand is clear; unexpectedly breathtaking. Elsa, who has sat below the night sky colored by northern lights and who has stood before the opening of her home's fjord. She who has seen her own ice castle glimmer under the sun from its place high up in the North Mountain and who has galloped across a dark sea in search for answers. She who has seen so much, now stands breathless from disbelief. Because suddenly she is hit with how much time has passed between the last time she thought of mortality as her inevitable fate and where she is now, in this immense city throbbing with new and old life, a hundred years later.

A gentle bump against her leg pulls her out of her musings. Elsa turns her head around to find Anna already sitting on one of the concrete steps with an extended hand towards her. She reaches out slowly, her fingers touching Anna's palm and then slipping further so that they're wrapped around her hand. They stay like that for a moment, lost in each other's eyes, until Anna gives her a tiny squeeze and Elsa tucks her dress under her thighs in order to sit down.

When she is right by her side, Anna bumps her shoulder. "We are seeing Paris," she tells her, and Elsa's smile widens. She looks briefly at the city below them and takes a deep breath, with enough contentment to fill her entire being.

"My uncle used to take me here when I was a child," Anna says after a while. "He would buy me a—" she gestures with her hand "—an ice cream? Strawberry. It is always been my favorite."

"I prefer chocolate."

The girl makes a face, and she laughs.

"Tell me more about your uncle," she then prompts.

Anna scratches her chin while she thinks. There is a thin, faint scar along its side that Elsa had not caught before. "He is a good man," Anna says with fondness. "He likes to tell jokes. Sometimes they're so bad you can't help but find them funny. And he likes to become friends with strangers very often. That is how everyone knows him in the neighborhood." She pauses for a second, lost in thought. "He can be scary when he is angry but he has never become angry with me."

"You're his favorite," Elsa comments, recalling the term he used on her the other night.

Anna chuckles. "I am his only one."

"Really?"

A nod. "He is not my father but he treats me like I am his daughter. It has always just been the two of us, so we try to take care of each other."

Elsa understands the silent implications that lie below her statement and finds within herself not a streak of sympathy, but of understanding.

"Do you... not wonder sometimes?"

Anna looks at her with tenderness. "I am happy. Why should I question that?"

She accepts her answer, wishing that she had applied it to her own life once, a long time ago. How different things would have been if only she had.

"What about you?" Anna asks.

"What about me?"

She stares intently until Elsa looks away. Only one person in her life has ever been able to read her that way. It is both terrifying and exhilarating.

"Your life," Anna says lowly, "It feels like a mystery to me."

"You know more about me than most people have in years."

"I know where you come from," she responds, moving so that she can face her fully. "I know about your travels. I know where you work. I know you had a sister. I know some of the things you like and some you don't. And I know you drink Merlot, only one or two glasses every other day."

Elsa doesn't look away this time. Her heart has started to hammer inside her chest. Her breathing has become heavier, laden with all the secrets she wishes she could unfold but is still too afraid to do so. How much can she bring herself to confess? How many secrets would Anna be willing to take?

"You don't have to tell me now," Anna says. "But when you are ready, I am here."

She nods, grateful. If only she could be a little bit braver, she would tell her everything right now. Here amidst the crowd, while the sun still shines and the playful shrieks of children can be heard in the distance. But things like this, she thinks, take time. They cannot possibly be unleashed all at once. So she chooses to wait a little longer; to share with Anna everything else there is to know about her.

Not, however, without asking one last thing.

"Do you believe in magic?"

The girl tilts her head in contemplation, and Elsa doesn't realize she's been holding back her breath until a soft smile tugs at the corners of Anna's lips and she says, "I think life would be a little bit boring if we didn't."

**_*_ **

_Arendelle, Norway - 1852_

It was dark by now inside the room. The candles they kept on the bedside had long ago been blown out. The scuffing of the castle staff in the hallways had long ago ceased. All that remained was the moonlight that peaked through the large window of their room and the quiet rustle of Elsa's magic as her fingers danced around in the air. It was something she'd come to find comforting and something that Anna had said she never got tired of seeing. They were often nothing more than swirls and indecipherable shapes; a playful, yet subdued invocation of the powers she had grown to fear and then embrace as a unique part of herself.

Anna lay next to her, with her head resting on Elsa's shoulder and an arm wrapped around her torso. And while she did not speak, Elsa knew she was awake. She could tell by the way her thumb kept grazing the skin on her belly, and the way she kept holding her breath at certain shapes Elsa created. Even after all these years, after so many things had changed, her excitement had stayed the same.

She went on moving her fingers, rotating her wrist, fascinated by the way her own magic worked. She had been afraid of it for so long, she often felt like she was making up for lost time.

"You know what makes me sad sometimes?"

Elsa stopped her movements, then moved to rest her lips against Anna's forehead. "What?"

"The memories Grand Pabbie changed in my head," she said, propping herself on her elbow, "They feel like a lie."

A gush of sadness took over as Elsa was brought back to that night. "I'm sorry," she breathed.

"No, hey," Anna brought a hand to her cheek, "None of it was your fault. If I'd had the chance I would have kicked and screamed to keep him from doing it." When Elsa didn't respond, she continued, "You punished yourself for long enough time, my love."

"Thirteen years," she whispered.

" _Way_ too long," Anna insisted. "But my point is that I miss those memories with your magic in it."

Elsa brushed her bangs away. "You were insufferable in most of them," she teased.

"Hey!"

"You always pulled at my hand," she recalled, "clapping, jumping up and down. 'Do the magic!' you always said. You almost fell down the stairs once because you couldn't contain yourself. And another time we were grounded because you made me freeze the kitchen's floor and Gerda fell on her bottom." She was laughing freely by now and Anna was too, even if she kept trying to cover her face with her hand.

"Poor Gerda," she mumbled.

"She couldn't walk straight for the rest of the day."

"That is _horrifying_. Please, remind me to apologize tomorrow."

Elsa giggled. "Yes, your majesty."

Uncovering her blushing face, Anna looked down at Elsa while her expression quietly shifted from embarrassment to affection. They gazes at each other until their laughter winded down and silence settled once again in the room. Elsa could feel herself grow warmer and her heart beat harder inside her chest; the same way it always did when Anna looked at her like this. And when she leaned closer and cupped Elsa's cheek, and kissed her with as much breathless passion as if it were the first time, Elsa felt entirely consumed.

Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders when Anna broke the kiss. They held each other for a long time, firmly, without any sign of wanting to let go, until her sister shifted in order to brush her lips against Elsa's pulse.

"I love you," Anna whispered.

"And I love you."

"Remember that," she pleaded as she threaded her fingers in Elsa's hair and nuzzled her neck with palpable, vehement yearning. "Even when I'm gone, please remember it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "remi, why does Anna wear dem trousers so much????????" because ice-bjorn that's why.

_Depuis ce temps, je voyage et sur toutes les routes à tout jamais ton doux visage qu'un r_ _êve effleure demeure. Car le temps qui fuit au vent de l'oubli passera sans bruit sans rien effacer._

_Ever since, I travel, and on every road I forever see your sweet face like a dwelling dream that crosses my mind. For when the time goes by on the wind of oblivion, it will pass without notice, without erasing a thing._

—Sidney Bechet, "Si tu vois ma mère."

**_*_ **

_Paris, France - 1952_

Three full months pass.

Life finds its way around, beneath and through her the same way the wind leaks through the nooks and alleys of Paris. She's beginning to adapt; to be able to look at the life she's creating and call it her own.

Mornings are for reminiscing. She wakes up every day, oblivious for a second of what once belonged to her, until it all comes back. Wave after wave of memories wash over her as she sits in bed. Remembering. As repetitive as a mantra, she brushes her fingertips over the silver necklace that rests against her collarbone. She thinks of her sister with gentle longing, the same way the image of her surges in Elsa's mind: blurry around the edges, but never quite gone. And she often wonders as she gets ready for another day of this new life, how much of what she reminisces is real and how much of it are musings of her own invention. Does the mind fill in the gaps because it knows the heart aches for what is has lost?

She steps out into the street: the sound of her Mary Janes over cobble stones muffled by the motors of the automobiles driving by. Adapting to the new world had not been as hard as she thought it would be. She'd gone along with it, albeit perhaps a little reluctantly. Habits. Customs. They're hard to get rid of. But she did so with fascination, too. She watched it all like an onlooker: the discoveries, the inventions, the transitions. She remembers taking the tunnel rail in Stockholm for the first time and almost laughing at how absurd it was to still be alive and be a part of it. She remembers being horrified by the telephone's ringing sound when she first heard it in a small town in Norway, and being fascinated by a group of men and women dancing to jazz music in Copenhagen's Vesterbro, almost twenty years ago. But an onlooker is all she was. A spectator, too hesitant to get involved.

Until now.

Spending time with Anna has felt like a breath of fresh air. It's made her become less hesitant; no longer a spectator. And she has _seen_ Paris—the pretty and the ugly. It is real and tangible, and Elsa no longer feels like she is living in an infinite dream.

She simply doesn't remember the last time she felt this alive.

The air is warm today, for it is still summer. Elsa takes the _métro_ with an ease that's become habitual—no longer absurd—from Villiers to Quatre-Septembre, mere blocks away from the museum. Upon exiting, she treads her usual path but upon reaching Rue du Louvre she crosses the street and continues forward rather than making a right. There are less cars than people at this time of day. The people who walk pass slowly; at a weekend pace. Some men tip their hats at her, a cigarette placed between index and middle finger. The women wear dresses that cling to their thighs, with padded busts that accentuate their waists. They remind her of something she read in a magazine not too long ago, while she was trying to see how much French she could understand: _The appearance of a woman is linked to her husband's success._ Elsa had put the magazine back and left the apothecary.

She reaches the bar, but rounds the corner instead of trying for the front door. Anna had told her it would be still be closed by the time she arrived and she finds her right away, in fact, without needing to go for the back door. She is crouching by her bike, rummaging through a tool box. Elsa clears her throat to announce her presence and the girl looks up with wide eyes.

"Hello!" Anna exclaims, standing up and almost knocking the bike off in the process. She appears flustered, and Elsa can't help but laugh a little.

"Hi," she says, "Everything okay?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." She pats her oil-stained trousers in embarrassment. "I am not ready."

Elsa takes a step closer. "That's okay. I can wait while you get ready." Instinctively, her hand reaches up to wipe a stain off the girl's cheek. It lingers there for a second before she quickly retrieves it, realizing her mistake. "I'm sorry," she mumbles, not missing the way her freckled skin has turned rosy.

Anna fidgets, touches the back of her neck. She steps back and into her bike, curses under her breath and points somewhere behind her. "I'll get ready now." She turns to leave then turns back again. "Come with me."

"Aren't you going to secure your bike?"

" _Putain_. Yes." She blushes anew while she quickly and absentmindedly drapes a chain over its frame. She throws the lid of the tool box closed, lifts it up and places it under her arm. The tools rattle inside as she gives Elsa a sheepish smile. "We can go now."

The stairway that leads to the second floor is small but slightly cooler than it is outside. Every other wooden step creaks under their weight as Elsa registers the peeling white paint of the walls, the faint smell of thyme, the way Anna climbs the stairs like she's racing someone to the top. Once there, the girl leads her to the end of the hallway. They pass a bedroom with its door left ajar, a modest kitchen, another shut door, and then finally Anna's room. The space is much smaller than Elsa's, yet it exudes life in a way that hers doesn't. There is a stack of vinyl records set next to a gramophone. A row of brown loafers and black oxfords neatly placed across a messily made up bed. An old wardrobe, a simple bedside table with a tattered copy of Camus' _L'étranger_ sitting on top. On the window, green liquor bottles line up its sill. They are filled up with flowers. Their fragile stems sticking out in bundles of colors—whites, yellows, pinks and purples.

Anna sets the tool box on the floor by the door and moves about the room in quick, fidgety strides. "I am sorry for the mess," she tells her, even though there's barely any.

"It's okay."

Looking for a place where she's not in the way, Elsa moves towards the window and steps under the sunlight. The tips of her fingers examine the petals of the flowers while Anna shuffles behind her, most likely tidying up what doesn't need to be tidied.

"Where do you find these flowers?" she asks her.

"I steal them," Anna responds, making Elsa whip her head around.

" _Anna._ "

The girl stops to grin. "Do you think they will be missed by the Luxembourg Gardens?"

Elsa shakes her head. Reckless, she thinks. Just like her sister.

**~~~**

The afternoon sun casts a warm light over the placid waters of the Seine. They have been walking along the bank for a while, unhurried by time's passing. All around them: people. Women in pairs, sometimes in groups—like flocks of chirping birds—talk loudly and giggle lowly. They clutch their handbags, touch their made-up hair, rearrange their clutching bags. Their hips sway as they step on the rocky soil of the bank and Elsa wonders if they are all married; if they also think their appearance must match their husbands' success. She wonders how many of them are actually happy behind those wide, toothy smiles; if they don't sometimes wish for a success of their own.

Men: in their sport coats, their plain button up shirts, strolling slowly with their hands behind their backs. What do they discuss with so much seriousness? Work, perhaps. Women. Existentialism; as if it belonged to them. Those who walk with a woman by their side are often smiling. They talk more animatedly as they hold on to their hands by the crook of their elbows. Intimacy in a picture. Elsa looks at them and can't help but think that this is something she wishes she could have with Anna. It occurs to her, this fleeting idea. She wonders if Anna thinks the same way. She wonders what she must think of her at all.

"Where do you go sometimes?" Anna asks.

"What do you mean?"

The girl makes a gesture with her hand. It flies and flickers in the air. "Your mind goes somewhere and you become quiet."

"Do I? I'm sorry."

Anna looks fully at her. Her eyes squint under the sun. Her loose, copper hair reflects slivers of it. "Where do you go?" she prods gently.

"I guess... I've had so much free time in my hands that now I'm used to getting lost thinking about things."

"What kinds of things?"

Elsa smiles at the ground. She should have known Anna wouldn't let this rest so easily. "I look at people sometimes and I wonder what they're thinking, who they are. A lot has changed. But I find that it is our surroundings and not us who do the changing."

"But don't _we_ change the surroundings?"

"Very few of us have that much power, don't you think? Most of us can only watch as it happens."

Anna is silent for a few seconds before she looks at her again. She's come to a full stop by now, as if this were necessary to emphasize her next words. "You're very wise," she comments. "Are you sure you are my age?"

Elsa laughs softly before she resumes their walk. She does not give her an answer.

They go on taking up the day's time in leisure. As they walk, Anna often points at things that ignite a story. She tells her about the bridge under which she got into a brawl with some boys, back when she was ten and her uncle had sent her out to the charcuterie. She'd come back home with her knees scrapped and her hair pulled at all sides, proud because she had given a few good kicks, right up until the point her uncle asked about the meat. She points at the accordionist who sits on a bench playing a melody Elsa can vaguely recognize. She tells her he goes to the bar sometimes and recites his drink from memory. As they leave him behind, Anna begins to whistle the melody that's been carried by the wind.

Elsa is fascinated by it all. By the way she moves, the way she carries herself. For there are things that are unequivocally her sister's, like little remnants of her soul. Elsa has observed the way she gestures with her hands when she talks, or how her shoulders go up when she giggles. The way her eyes light up when she talks about the things she likes, and how she tucks her hair behind her ear when she is shy. She observes it, unable to hide the affection in her eyes. But Elsa notices, too, the things that pertain solely to her. She is more boyish than Anna ever was and does not carry the natural poise that belongs to those raised within royalty. She is more practical; far less clumsy. She is interested in things Anna never considered interesting. And the more Elsa gets to know her, the more she realizes that whenever she looks at her she is starting to see not her sister, but _her_.

"I used to want to swim in the river," Anna recounts all of the sudden. "'Do you want to be washed like a dog?' my uncle always told me, but I have never seen a dog in the river so I don't know what he means."

Elsa thinks about this for a moment. "Maybe because they used to bathe dogs in the river last century," she muses out loud, "Back then you could see dogs of all kinds by the river while people groomed and bathed them. I do not imagine the river must have been clean even then."

Anna is staring at her. "Uncle is old," she says, "But how do _you_ know that?"

"I've... heard stuff." She bites her lip and looks away, not wanting to know what Anna's narrowing eyes may give away.

"Do you have rivers back home?" Anna then asks.

Mildly relieved, she shakes her head. "We lived by a fjord. But the water was too cold and too deep for us to want to swim there, let alone wash a dog."

"What is a fee-yord?"

"Think of a fjord as a sea or a very large lake, but with all kinds of cliffs and high mountains on both sides of it."

"And how do you spell that?"

"F-j-o-r-d."

Anna repeats the letters under her breath. "Like the j in _justice_?"

"Similar, but not quite."

The girl tsks. "Languages," she mutters, "One day I will travel the world and learn as many as I can."

"Is that so?"

She nods resolutely, runs her hand through her hair, and Elsa can't help but watch. She looks at the way Anna's hair falls to one side of her face as she tilts her head. She observes the freckles under the late-afternoon sunlight—how they travel across her cheekbone until they diminish and end by the soft spot where her ear meets her cheek—and then continues, enthralled, along the line of her jaw, her chin, her knowing smile.

Elsa glances away, mortified at having been caught.

On the west side of the Seine the sun continues to make its way down. Streaks of orange now color a cloudless sky while the dark silhouettes of birds fly high above and those whom they have passed are now long gone. So vague the shapes of their faces, their postures and their looks have been that they are not enough to be engraved into their memory. They are nothing more than shapes, heading into oblivion.

**~~~**

"I heard an American tell a joke at the bar the other night," Anna tells her as they sit down on the garden's bench. "Let me see if I can remember. He said, 'Did you hear about the man who jumped from the Eiffel Tower?.. He was in- _Seine_.'"

Elsa reacts by covering her face, unsure of whether she is laughing at the joke or at Anna's own giggling.

"I thought you said your uncle was the bad one at jokes."

Anna laughs out loud at this. A full-blown laughter that sends a hand to her belly and attracts the attention of a few.

"Maybe it is hereditary," she says through a laugh, going slow at the last word as though mindful of her own pronounciation. It is too charming; too endearing for Elsa to bear.

The city has come to life with thousands of lights. They have come to end the night in the gardens of the Trocadéro and not a single thing obstructs the view of the Eiffel Tower from where they sit. Illuminated by spotlights that stretch towards the sky, the tower stands in a glowing white hue against a dark canvas. It is a view Elsa thinks she will never grow tired of seeing. A view that inspires an emotion that is almost physical: a swelling of the heart that leaves one breathless. It is unfathomable, greater than life; the legacy of a few. Elsa wonders what it's like to leave something this grandiose behind before she wonders what it is like to leave at all.

"Your sister gave you that necklace, didn't she?"

"Yes," Elsa responds, turning to her. "How did you know?"

She shrugs. "What do they call it... a hunch?"

Elsa smiles. _We can call it that,_ she thinks to herself.

"She was very special to you."

"Can you tell?"

Anna scratches her chin, a gesture Elsa has come to notice occurs when she's considering her next words. "You don't speak often about her," she says, "And I think what is closest to our hearts is what we are most quiet about."

"And you call _me_ wise and old."

She sniggers, bumps Elsa's shoulder with her own. There is a pause in which they both turn to look at the tower again. It goes on being shone upon, undeterred by the whole world.

"What is her name?"

Elsa turns back to her, feeling breathless all of the sudden. "Her name was Anna," she murmurs.

Something sparks behind the girl's eyes. A shadow of recognition that is soon substituted by the gentle look of growing fondness.

"That is a very pretty name."

She chuckles. "You would know."

"I know many things." Anna rearranges herself on the bench, leaning back to prop herself with the heels of her hands. The action has somehow shortened the distance between them while Elsa now sits, hoping that there was no distance at all.

"I would also like to know more about your sister," she says as an afterthought, "But only when you are ready."

Elsa's chest moves up and down with a sigh. "Thank you." The time will come, she is now sure of it. She can feel it with as much certainty as the way magic thrums in her veins.

A few seconds pass; perhaps they turn into a minute. A couple has come and sat close by. Elsa can hear the way they talk softly to each other, reminding her what intimacy sounds like.

"Tell me," she says as she turns back to Anna with newfound curiosity. "What is your favorite thing about the Eiffel Tower?"

"That it has holes."

"Is that your favorite thing?" she asks incredulously.

"They could not build with stone so they had to use metal. So it looks unfinished, like a skeleton, but it also doesn't. I think it's genius. One of a kind." Anna grazes her chin again with the tips of her fingers. "There was an article I read one day. They say the tower was finished in record time. It weighs more than ten thousand tonnes and it has more than eighteen thousand pieces of iron." She pauses, looks at the tower with amazement. "I always dream about being here when it was being constructed."

Elsa regards her with affection. This is one of those things that is solely hers. And this, in particular, is something Elsa can help her with. She was briefly here, after all, in 1888.

"Close your eyes," she says.

"Why?"

"I want you to imagine something for me."

Anna narrows them, then closes them.

For a moment Elsa does nothing but trace with her gaze the lines of Anna's face as they are softened by the dim lights of the gardens. All she can hear is the water cascading from the fountains that line up the large basin, the humming sound of the city's nightlife, and her own breathing, accelerated by the fleeting notion of what it would be like to kiss Anna right now.

Her mouth goes dry, and she has to swallow. "Picture nothing but the base of the tower," she starts lowly, "with large pieces of iron sticking out like grass. It is messy everywhere. You see hundreds of men coming and going around the tower's legs looking like ants from afar. They're whistling at one another, yelling out orders. Some of them are laughing, probably trying to stay sane in all that chaos." She closes her eyes then in order to recall things more clearly. "It smells like metal and concrete, and all you can hear sometimes are the chains and the elevators carrying all the pieces up. It looks... not very pretty. And you don't think it looks charming with all that iron going on and that weird, unfinished structure." Then, she smiles. "What you wouldn't know is that if you were standing here today, you would think you were completely wrong."

Elsa opens her eyes to find Anna already looking at her. There is that same spark of recognition but this time it lingers, transforming itself into something akin to the beginning of a question. _Ask me,_ Elsa wants to say, _ask me everything I've been longing to tell you._

She doesn't register the rowdy group of teenagers until they are there, meters away from where they sit. The moment is gone and so, too, is her courage. They steal the moment away from them, with their loud and drunken French, their youthful antics and their irreverence, and Anna goes back to observing the Eiffel Tower with a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips and a tinge of confusion in her eyes, while Elsa goes back to observing her.

She looks ahead after a while—at this tower washed in spotlights. At its holes and its hardy, iron skeleton—until she realizes that what is grazing the back of her hand is not the night's breeze but Anna's feathery touch. A pinky, searching and reassuring. A touch that speaks.

Elsa doesn't dare looking. But she smiles, and when Anna reaches out again with more certainty this time, she welcomes it with a gentle touch of her own.

*****

_Karlstad, Sweden - 1860_

The train rattled against the steel rails as it made its way to Stockholm.

It was meant to be another diplomatic visit. Another handful of days filled with talks of politics and ruling; of trades and economy. No more, no less. People had stopped asking questions about why Elsa did not look a day past twenty-four. Or about why she had formally abdicated but had remained so, by her sister's side, with as much poise and bearing as if she were a second queen. Things people did not understand, they feared. Death, magic, the unknown. It often led to trouble, but so far this had lead to nothing more than rumors that rose up and dwindled like the foam of the sea. "Let them talk," Anna always told her. "It keeps them from getting too close."

They had always enjoyed trips like these. Brief in time, but always adventurous. Anna often needed the distraction after all; even after years of being queen; even though she had already left her youthful years behind. Elsa would rarely say no to anything her sister suggested. She couldn't, plain and simple. It was not a possibility when they were both kids and it was not a possibility now, decades later.

From where she sat on an armchair, she looked over at her sister. She was sitting with her legs extended over a deep blue Victorian sofa intricately embroidered with silver. Her attention was elsewhere, far off in the distance as seen from the window of the royal coach. Anna appeared serene, the profile of her delicate face set high and regal.

"What are you thinking about?" Elsa asked.

Her sister didn't glance her way. She continued to stare out the window, silent for almost a minute until she finally turned to her and said, "How much do you think it would cost us to have a da Vinci sent to us?"

Elsa was incredulous. "Is that really what you were thinking about?"

"What?" She laughed. "I'm being serious."

"Well I don't know, sweetheart. It has never occurred to me to have an artist of that magnitude in our portrait room."

Anna huffed through her nose and pursed her lips. She may have surpassed her in age already, but it was little things like this that made Elsa wonder if she would always act as the youngest of the two.

"I will write a letter to Sotheby's when we get back," Anna announced under her breath while Elsa chuckled, shook her head, and went back to reading her book with a smile on her face. She didn't get to read but two words, however, when her mind began to wander elsewhere. Back again to the inevitability of impermanence. Anna was thirty-nine years old now. A full-grown woman. So much had changed in the world, yet so little had changed between them. Their love for each other, it felt permanent. Their commitment, their respect, their sense of belonging remained. But what of everything else? What about that which the nature of death permanently threatened? Elsa wished she had the wisdom; the power to learn to embrace the essence of love without the need for physical reassurance. She knew she would need it one day. When Anna was gone, she would need this love to keep her afloat.

The train went on. It swayed gently back and forth as it sped through the white, boreal forests of Sweden.

"Did you know they took care of selling Napoleon's books when he died?"

She looked back at Anna; at her intent, mature eyes. Elsa's heart swelled with love for a brief, tender moment. "And how, pray tell, do you know that?"

"I know many things, my dear sister."

"Do you now?"

"Yes," she drawled. "Same way I know, for example, that your birthday is in two weeks."

"You should have had that knowledge seared onto your forehead by now, my dear sister."

Anna gave a hearty laugh. It was no longer as high as it once was, but lower and raspier; richer in a way. Her voice had matured along with the rest of her.

"Speaking of which," she said before standing up from the sofa, "I have something for you."

"But I thought you said my birthday was in two weeks."

Anna rolled her eyes. She opened the writing desk's drawer, took a small, rectangular box out of it. She then approached Elsa, and knelt on the carpeted floor.

"Kai finally gave it to me this morning before we left." She handed her the box with care. "I had it done a few weeks back. I wanted to have it on time for your birthday but once I had it in my hands you know there was no way I could have waited two more weeks."

Surprised, Elsa contemplated the box by brushing her fingertips over the smooth surface of its lid. It was rosewood, dark and deep, like the color of black chocolate. On its center, the crocus of Arendelle had been painted with gold—the lines and the bold curves drawn to a perfection. Elsa opened it at Anna's gentle but giddy insistance. What she found inside pulled a soft gasp out of her. There, resting on velvet padding, a silver necklace with a blue crystal in the shape of a teardrop. It glimmered, reflecting the winter light coming from the windows.

"Anna..."

"I know you don't do jewelry," her sister explained, "But I wanted you to have something physical that could... stay with you, close to your heart... for when I'm gone."

She felt the sensation of her throat closing up as the tears started to well up in her eyes. The air that escaped her quivered, laden with emotions she couldn't quite put into words just yet. It wasn't until she looked down at the box again that she registered what was on the back of its lid. It was Anna's own handwriting, engraved in gold. Three words for which her tears—happy and sorrowful all at once—finally fell.

_Yours, in eternity._

Her sister reached up from where she still knelt on the floor and wiped with both her thumbs the wet trails on Elsa's cheeks. "These are happy tears, I hope?"

Elsa chuckled despite herself. She said nothing, however, but responded by placing her hand on Anna's right and turning her head sideways in order to kiss her palm. "Thank you," she breathed against her skin, lingering a while, burrowing into the warmth she wished she never had to let go of.

"Do you want me to put it on for you?"

"Yes."

Anna stood up, no longer with a spring as she used to when she was twenty. She stepped around the chair, accepted the necklace from Elsa's hands and waited for her to set her hair to the side. The delicate chain was lifted up over her head before Elsa saw it being lowered before her eyes, her nose, her mouth. She felt the coldness of it, but nothing more. Instead, she focused on the way Anna's fingers worked at the nape of her neck, the way they brushed over her bare shoulder, the way warm air suddenly engulfed her skin as Anna leaned down to give her a devoting, lingering kiss.

**_*_ **

_Paris, France - 1952_

Hushed conversations echoing in the large halls. The sporadic tapping of high heels. The courteous quietude. A woman's sudden, short and boisterous laugh. An impatient hush. A suppressed giggle. Anna's voice, low and solemn.

"I wonder what she looks like with arms."

Elsa tilts her head to the side. She cannot picture it. She tilts her head to the other side, narrows her eyes. She thinks, this is how the world knows her now. To give arms to the Venus de Milo would be to turn it into an entirely different sculpture.

"What a mysterious woman," Anna muses out loud. She turns to Elsa and smiles. "Just like someone I know."

Elsa sets her eyes downcast and tucks her hair behind her ear as Anna begins to walk away, her hands joined at the back, and one last beckoning glance sent Elsa's way.

She has invited her to the Louvre today after having spent a night at the bar trying to explain to Anna the difference between Botticelli and Caravaggio; Monet and Van Gogh. Anna just did not understand. Or so she said. They reached a point in the night where Elsa began to realize that she was only teasing her, riling her up. Of course she understood. Anna was too smart; too keen on learning to not understand Caravaggio's use of light or the way Monet often used bold, complimentary colors for his paintings. She would suppress a smile, take pauses in between words to keep herself from laughing. But her eyes could not lie.

"No, no, no," Anna would say with feigned seriousness, "I do not understand. Impressionism makes no sense."

"Art doesn't have to make sense to be _enjoyed_ , Anna."

"That does not make sense either," she'd retorted while Elsa had covered her face and shaken her head. She could feel her warm cheeks against her palms. Between her second and third glass of Merlot she was already worked up.

She had then uncovered her face to find Anna grinning. "I'm taking you to the museum," she'd stated.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, that is so."

Anna had leaned across the bar. Her eyes intent on studying every feature of Elsa's face. Her scent intoxicating as Elsa tried her best to appear stoic at her proximity.

"Is that a date?" she'd asked.

Elsa could have sworn she'd whimpered. "Do you want it to be?"

Anna said nothing. She'd pushed herself away from the bar and given her a smile; playful and secretive in a room full of strangers oblivious to what was beginning to blossom between the two girls.

Her eyes, however, had not not lied.

_"Hermaphrodite endormi,_ " Anna reads out loud (with her stupidly perfect French) from the museum's pamphlet. She looks up and stares at the sculpture: a naked woman lying face down on a mattress. She's resting her head on a pillow while a blanket interlaces with her legs. Elsa has been around it enough times to know there is a chip on one of the corners of the mattress, to know that there is a scrape on the left side of the woman's back, and to know that just last week they caught a staff member sitting before opening hours on the sculpture's mattress. He had been fired on the spot.

"I wonder something," she hears Anna say as they begin to round the sculpture. "Their eyes. There are no details in their eyes. No color." She leans a little too close and Elsa has to place a hand on her shoulder. "They all look almost the same."

"What are you trying to say?"

Anna straightens up. "How do I know they're not all the same person?"

Elsa thinks about this as she studies the sculpture. "I don't think it's that type of similarity that should tell you what you need to know about their work," she says slowly, measuring each word. "The Greeks, for example, had an appreciation for the human form. So their works are almost life-like. The Egyptians had different methods, different reasons to create sculptures. Many of their works were meant for tombs, and their statues often stuck to one posture. To them it was important that the face should look ahead, for example, as if looking at eternity."

"So eyes are not important."

She smiles at her. "They are nothing but a minor detail of the sculpture as a whole. Everything else—their posture, their facial expressions, the objects which they hold in their hands—, tell you a far bigger story."

The girl nods, lost in thought. "I want to learn more about art," she declares.

Elsa takes two steps away from the sculpture, moving so that she is behind Anna. "Come with me and you will," she murmurs close to her ear. She braves a touch, reaching for her hand, allowing their fingers to intertwine for a brief moment before they separate again. She doesn't miss the way Anna looks at her. It settles deep inside her heart, stirring alive something else, too. Something warm. Something akin to the beginnings of falling in love.

**~~~**

"So which one is this?"

" _La Victoire de Samothrace._ "

"Nice _._ "

"Thank you, I've been practicing."

"I meant the sculpture." Anna sniggers as she ducks away from Elsa's attempt to swat at her with the pamphlet.

They have reached the top landing of the Daru staircase on their way out of the museum. Elsa has explained as best as she can every piece of art Anna has asked about. She has pointed at her own favorites—Delacroix, Canova and Bernini—, and has stepped to the side in the Salle des États in order to give Anna the time to study da Vinci's Mona Lisa, fifteen feet away from it and surrounded by dozens of others desperate to steal a glance from a woman no one will ever know the real identity of. Elsa had often thought to herself that the foundations of men's most famous pieces of art had been laid upon the shoulders of nameless women.

"Tell me the story about this one," Anna requests.

Elsa hums. "It has been exhibited at the Louvre for almost a hundred years," she says, "and it is one of our most famous pieces. It was found in Greece, inside a sanctuary dedicated to the great gods. She was nothing but fragments. They had to rebuild her here."

"Like a puzzle."

"Very much like a puzzle."

"I think this one is my favorite," she says.

"How so?"

"Just look at it," Anna tells her, signaling with her finger, "Don't you feel inspired just looking at it? It makes me want to buckle my pants, get on a horse and conquer France."

Elsa has no time to cover her own laugh. Without thinking, she hooks her arm with Anna's and pulls her away from the sculpture. "Come on, Napoléon. Let's conquer a café. I'm famished."

**~~~**

They have come to Rue de Rivoli, across the river from Notre-Dame.

The smell of cigarettes and perfume mingles in the air. A waiter with sleek, black hair, a bow tie around his neck and a tray on his hand treads amongst round tables occupied by men and women smoking, sipping cocktails, wines and espressos. They talk animatedly, facing towards the street. Elsa has never been surrounded by people as much at ease and unperturbed as the Parisians; with their legs crossed, their backs reclined against the chairs, their passionate conversations. As if they knew what to make of time. As if they knew—and understood—that enjoying life wasn't as hard as others made it out to be.

"You have to try this."

"Absolutely not."

Anna laughs but pushes the tongs closer to Elsa's mouth. "You will like it!"

She pushes herself back. "No way. I am _not_ eating snail."

"It is a miss for you," she says as she twists the fork inside the shell, slowly separating the meat from it. Elsa gags, covers her mouth and looks elsewhere. "It tastes like chicken," Anna tells her through a mouthful.

"Then why not just order chicken?"

"Because it is different."

"You are insane."

Anna nods, accepting this.

Elsa gulps some of her wine in order to cleanse her palate off a taste she did not even have. She goes back to her provençal tarte _._ There is nothing slimy on it, just vegetables. Nice and simple, cooked all the way.

"It's okay," Anna says after eating yet another _escargot_ , "It is a taste you learn... Is that it? Am I saying it right?"

"You mean an acquired taste?"

"Ah, _oui_."

She leans closer. "Believe me, I have tried, but I cannot stand the consistency of it."

"When?"

"Huh?"

"When did you try them?"

Elsa pauses, hesitates. "When I was here. Once. Before."

"When was that again?"

She stares at Anna, wondering if she knows more than she's letting on. But Anna's expression is uncharacteristically indecipherable and Elsa has no other choice but to respond. "A while ago."

Anna tilts her head and watches her closely for long enough that she has to curl her fingers inward in order to keep herself from freezing the table out of nervousness. The girl then reaches for her own glass of wine, lifts it up and takes a sip, letting go of the hold she had on Elsa's gaze. Relief washes over her but so does something else. Regret. She is finally reaching the point where lying does nothing but leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

"When you came to visit," Anna says, "Did you visit outside of Paris?"

"I did not," Elsa responds regretfully.

"Would you like to?"

Elsa raises her eyebrows in surprise before a quiet form of excitement takes over. "Is that a date, Anna?"

A gentle smile spreads across the girl's face. "Only if you want it to be."

*****

_Arendelle, Norway - 1844_

It began to rain before they could reach the castle.

Elsa could hear her sister's laughter below the thundering sound of the downpour as they ran across the courtyard. It was late and the full moon was already high up in the sky by the time it was tucked behind the heavy clouds. The castle remained silent, and except for the guards who stood still at the gates, it felt completely empty.

Evenings were for each other, religiously and without a question. They trod the secret paths of their land, losing themselves on purpose and finding themselves anew. They watched the sunsets from the rocky shore of the fjord, discovered the hidden corners of their kingdom, played in the snow created by Elsa's magic, sat by the fireplace of their library in gentle silence. A sense of making up for lost time still pervaded their actions, but something had begun to change lately. A muffled shift that occurred in the dead hours of the night and in mornings where dreaming gave way to wishing. Every lingering gaze and subtle brush of the hand became an unspoken truth, until the line between what was right and wrong started to appear as indecipherable as the line where the sky and the sea met at night.

They reached the main doors still giggling, soaked from head to toe.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Anna urged as Elsa tried to push through the doors while swatting at the hands that kept digging into her ribs and making her squirm.

Anna ran past her with a giggle as soon as they were inside. Her riding boots left small puddles of water on the spotless floor. Her hair and her clothes, droplets on which the warm lights of the chandeliers could cast their reflection. Her brown vest had turned black from the rain, and her white blouse had stuck to her arms and shoulders like a thin veil that revealed the rosy color of her skin. And Elsa could no longer recognize why she felt so breathless all of the sudden, and why her heart felt as though it were trying to leap out of her chest.

At the foot of the stairs, Anna reached for her hand. Dark tresses of hair stuck to her damp cheeks, but she was smiling—grinning like a fool in love with life—and Elsa saw not rain, but sunshine in her eyes. Her sister tugged, guiding her up, covering her laugh with her hand.

She shushed Elsa, and Elsa shushed her back. "You're the one laughing!"

Their actions echoed in the large, empty halls of the castle as they ran towards Anna's room, sneaking inside as if they were being chased, hiding as if they had broken a vase. Just like they did, all those years ago.

Anna let her in and after a second, she closed the door behind her.

Silence reigned for a moment while Anna leaned back against the door. She tried to catch her breath and so too did Elsa. She stood there, observing her sister, studying every inch of her body the same way she had caught herself doing more and more often. She watched her soaked figure; her chest rising and falling; her kissable, parted lips. But then Anna was stepping forward, shortening the distance between them. She threw herself at her arms and Elsa felt breathless once again.

Threading her fingers in Anna's hair she asked, "What's wrong?"

"I just feel so happy," Anna whispered in her ear, "It's hard to keep it in."

Elsa tilted her head so that her lips grazed her sister's cheek. "Then don't." She could feel something shifting. It rumbled across her whole body, pulling and twisting at her insides so that she knew not where her longing ended and Anna's began. It had set her alight, and Elsa wanted to be consumed by it.

"You're trembling." She stepped back just enough to tug at the lapels of Anna's vest, pulling slowly at them so that they would travel down her shoulders, her arms, her wrists. The soaked fabric fell heavily on the floor but Elsa only heard the quickening pace of Anna's breathing. She gazed down at the skin revealed by her shirt. It glistened under the pale moonlight, beckoning her closer.

"Elsa?"

She looked up to find vulnerability in her sister's face, her eyes screaming with a question that had gone far too long unanswered.

"We need to get out of these clothes," she said.

But Anna did not move, and Elsa began to wonder if it was the cold she was trembling from.

"Not yet, I—," Anna stumbled, licked her lips. "I need to know something first."

"Anything."

She placed a shaky hand above Elsa's thrumming heart and stood there, looking down at the connection that was being made. Yet, the longer she stayed silent, the more Elsa felt like giving in under her touch.

"Am I imagining all this?" Anna breathed.

Their eyes met and slowly, Elsa shook her head.

Her sister exhaled and the warmth air reached her lips. "Tell me what you want."

She swallowed. It was her turn to tremble; to exhale a shaky breath; to feel her heart pounding at her chest. But when her answer came, it did so in the shape of a touch. Gentle at first: the back of a hand brushing her freckled cheek, the soft side of her thumb ghosting over her lower lip. She allowed Anna to know this way, that everything she wanted was standing right in front of her.

Elsa watched her sister sigh and look down at her lips. And she knew then, that there was nothing holding them back anymore. She leaned in only for Anna to meet her halfway for a first kiss that nearly made her knees buckle. Everything amounted to this. The years of separation. The time spent making up for it. The vehement love that transformed itself into something only they would ever truly understand. She gave in entirely to the taste of her sister's lips, to the desperate way in which she pulled her closer at the waist. Because they were soaking still, but nothing felt more searing than this.

And then Anna was gently pushing her back towards the bed, tugging at the wet fabric of her blouse, desperately seeking leverage in Elsa's lips. Their boots were discarded. Every piece of clothing fell to the floor until it was just the two of them, no longer separated by any barriers. Anna's devotion poured out like water from a broken dam and this time, Elsa did nothing to stop it. She felt every kiss on her lips, her neck, her breasts and her navel. She whimpered at Anna's gentle but passionate caresses, and moaned at the way Anna claimed her body like no one else had or ever could. She became hers that night, for what felt like precious eternity.

The rain did not cease, and neither did they. Tangled naked in the satin sheets of her sister, the queen, Elsa came to learn the meaning of yearning for the first time, over and over again.

*****

_Paris, France - 1952_

Elsa is already waiting for the knock on her door by the time Anna arrives. She had been inspecting herself, running her hands down her cotton pullover to rid it of wrinkles that did not exist, rearranging for the third time the high waist of her capri slacks, fixing the soft curls of her hair. She had not dared touch the surface of the mirror, but if she had, Elsa doesn't doubt it would have been covered in frost.

She huffs out a last calming breath before she reaches for the handle. Anna is standing on the other side of the door, a black beret in her hands and a surprised look on her face.

"What?" Elsa asks, looking down at herself. "Is this too much?"

Anna shakes her head. "N-No," she stammers out. "You look... lovely. Very pretty. Yes." Her cheeks redden as she clears her throat and glances down. "Should we go?"

She nibbles at the corner of her lip before she says, "Yes."

Their footsteps echo in the narrow hall as they make their way down. Outside, the sun is beginning to warm up the city. She follows Anna across the street, towards a baby blue Renault whose opaque paint and oxidized bumper tell more of a story than a brand new automobile ever could. Elsa smiles when she opens the door for her, but feels herself blush when Anna's gaze lingers on her and states, "You really do look very pretty."

When Anna has sat behind the wheel she doesn't miss her chance to return the gesture. "You look lovely as well."

The girl smiles shyly before she starts the car. It rumbles, then moves slowly as Anna incorporates into the street.

"So where are we heading?" Elsa asks.

"It is a surprise."

"What about a hint?"

Anna laughs. "I thought you said you were a patient woman."

"I _am_. But I also tend to maintain a certain level of natural curiosity towards things that interest me, such as this."

The girl glances at her with a smirk.

"What?"

"I like it when you speak like that."

"Oh." Elsa feels her cheeks warm up— _again._ She feels like a fourteen year old around Anna: shy one second, giddy the next, flustered the following one. Can't she act her actual age for once?

"Trust me," Anna says, ridding her of her misery, "You will like where we are going."

Slowly, the smaller and less busy roads of Batignolles widen to make way for the weekend's chaotic traffic. Anna drives with ease as she weaves through the honking cars, the men and women heedlessly crossing at intersections, the pigeons that loiter the streets, fly away at the threat of a passing car, then land back on the ground, resuming their struts. The lonesome policeman who stands in the middle of Place des Ternes, whistling his lungs out, completely ignored. The air smells faintly of gasoline, but if Elsa were to tilt her head towards the inside of the car, she would be able to smell Anna's scent with precious clarity.

When they make a right on Avenue Charles de Gaulle, Anna tells her to look behind them. Elsa twists around and sees, in the distance, the standing figure of the Arc de Triomphe. She smiles to herself, then settles in her seat again with a comforting sigh. She's coming to realize that she has started to fall in love with Paris, too.

**~~~**

"I had a very strange dream last night," Anna begins to tell her as they cruise the small roads of the town. "It was night and I was standing on sand. Very rocky sand. And I think I was looking at a fee-yord? Like the ones you described to me once. I was alone and I was waiting for someone, but I was not sad, I was excited."

Elsa watches her closely. "Do you know who you were waiting for?"

"No, I did not." She frowns, briefly distracted by her pursuit of a parking spot. "I don't know how to explain it. I was very happy to wait for this person but I did not know who this person was... Or maybe I _did_ know," she says as an afterthought, "In my dream, and now it is gone."

"Maybe it will come back to you another time."

"Maybe," she responds distractedly.

Elsa goes on watching her as she searches for a place where they can stop. She wonders: Would she want that part of Anna's previous life to come back? There must be a reason why memories from past lives do not return with us. What good could come to the present one to know that we may have been of royal kin; that we may have been conquerors or assassins, artists or philosophers; that we may have lived a life of sufferings or a life of blessings. What good is it to know any of that, if there's nothing that can be done to an already written past?

And what good could come to them then, if she were to tamper with Anna's own memories?

"We are here!"

Elsa looks around at their surroundings from the window of the car. She has no idea where here is. "Where are we—"

"Come on!"

Urged by the girl's excitement, she exits the car. Its door creaks as it opens and slams when it is shut. They stand in a narrow country lane while Elsa watches the half-timbered houses in pale yellows, browns and blues; the flowered bushes on their fronts and the hanging vines on their balconies; the wooden, handmade sign by a storefront, the impressionistic paintings on its wall, and a snoozing cat soaking up the sun at its door.

"Welcome to Giverny," Anna tells her. She is standing close by, awaiting Elsa's reaction.

"Monet's Giverny?"

She nods solemnly, reaching for her hand. The warmth of her touch begins at Elsa's fingertips and courses straight to her heart. "Come on," she tells her again, "You will love his garden." Elsa can feel a small squeeze on her fingers before Anna releases her hand, and for a second she thinks she could be brave enough to reach out and not let go.

The gentle transition to the fall has painted Monet's garden with warm hues that cast a reflection on the murky green pond on which water lilies float as still as if they had been painted themselves. The air is fresh and cool despite the sun shining brightly above, while the birds go on chirping and the visitors go on murmuring in awe. There are flowers all around them. Vibrant reds, yellows and purples; in buds and fully blossomed. They move in time with the breeze and their petals give in under the curious touch of many like the girl who stands next to Elsa.

"They say if you know his works you know his garden," she tells her as she watches her touch the petals of a dahlia the color of carmine.

"I think they are right," Anna says. "But I also think there is nothing like the real thing."

Elsa picks up a fallen white carnation from the ground. "Why do you say that?" she asks as she steps closer. She can sense a pair of teal eyes focus on the features of her face.

"Well," Anna clears her throat, "you can't smell paintings." Elsa pushes her black beret back before gently tucking her hair behind her left ear. "You can't hear the noises inside or really experience light. And you can't... " She secures the flower's stem, rearranges Anna's beret, and doesn't miss her chance to ghost the back of her fingers over her cheek. Anna goes on staring, and Elsa can't help but give her a smile.

"You can't what?"

" _Quoi?_ "

"What else can't you do with paintings."

"Oh." She blinks a few times. "You can't feel, uh... warmth."

Elsa hums. A couple is strolling past them. The man tips his hat while the woman flashes a polite smile, and Elsa feels emboldened enough to hook her arm with Anna's and pull her along.

"So tell me," she says, "How do you feel about the cold?"

**~~~**

Anna has found a place for them to eat in a rather unexpected location. Elsa trails after her as they make their way up the slope amidst clusters of bright dandelions and luscious green weeds, trying to appear as though she isn't staring at Anna's backside every time the girl turns around to make sure she is still behind her.

They have parked near the outskirts of Giverny. It is much quieter here than it is in town, and it is completely mute if it were to be compared to Paris. The wind that grazes the green fields is the loudest of sounds. Below it, cows can be heard lowing in the distance, as well as the sound of footsteps on grass as Anna sets about to placing down the blanket and the basket she's brought—and which Elsa had not seen until they'd parked the second time.

"This was your plan all along, wasn't it?" she asks.

"Yup." Anna pauses midway through pulling a bottle of Merlot out of the basket. "Do you not like it?"

"Oh, I love it," she quickly responds. "I hadn't... done something like this in quite a long time."

"They are good memories, I hope?"

She smiles tenderly. "They're some of the best."

It has been so long and now Elsa wonders again: How do people begin to fall in love? Is the awareness split into small pieces and scattered over the mundanity of that person's actions? Or is it in the silences in between? She looks at Anna pull out the contents of the basket, with the carnation still tucked behind her ear, and wonders if this had been inevitable since the beginning. How extraordinary, Elsa thinks, and yet how cruel; that she should meet love again at the expense of knowing it comes at a cost.

Her attention falls on the handful of flowers Anna is now sticking inside a small, empty bottle of White Label Whisky: pick and white carnations, lilac bellflowers, and one marigold. She sets them in the middle of the blanket, surrounded by fresh, cut up pieces of baguette wrapped in linen cloth, raspberry confiture, honey, and a small cheese board.

"Where did you get those flowers?"

"I collected them from the garden."

"Did you pick them up?"

She shakes her head, pouring the wine. "I needed them fresh."

" _Anna_."

She grins, hands one of the glasses to her. "Do you think Monet will mind?"

Elsa covers her face before she hears Anna clink their glasses together.

It may be extraordinary and cruel, and Anna may be a flower thief, but Elsa knows this deep down: It is all completely, and beautifully worth it.

The cheese board is the first one to go. So is half of the honey; half of the raspberry confiture. The taste of it all lingers in Elsa's mouth in one rich flavor that is slowly washed away by the dry, sharp taste of the wine. She takes her time with it, and so does Anna. The afternoon feels as though it has prolonged itself just for them, stretching out far into the distance where the sky kisses the open fields.

"My sister and I used to do this a lot," she finds herself saying. "We would have picnics and spend the afternoon reading, or talking, or looking for shapes in the clouds."

Anna fixes her eyes on her. "Would you tell me more about her?" she asks gently.

Elsa looks away, but only briefly. This, she thinks, she is ready to talk about.

"I loved my sister," she tells her with aching sincerity. "She was fearless and sometimes very stubborn. But she was also the most selfless person I've ever known. She had this energy that was hard to keep up with at times." Elsa focuses on the fabric of the blanket, begins to trace her finger over the checkered lines. "Our home was... big—so big that you could get lost in it—but she still knew every corner of it as if she had spent days exploring it." Alone, Elsa realizes. Her sister had spent thirteen years exploring the castle alone.

"We went through a lot when we were kids," she confesses, "Separately, because I..." Memories are coming back to her in an overwhelming, regretful rush that renders her speechless. Until Anna reaches for her hand and gives it a tender squeeze.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"But I want to," she murmurs. For once, she wants to speak with the truth. "There was an accident. And I... hurt my sister. So my parents thought it better for us to be separated so that I wouldn't hurt her again. I spent many, many years being terrified of that."

"Of hurting your sister?"

"Yes."

"But if it was an accident..."

Elsa smiles sadly. "She thought of it the same way," she says. "She believed in me even when I couldn't."

"You have a good soul, Elsa." Their fingers intertwine loosely as she says this, and it takes everything in Elsa to keep the tears that are beginning to well up in her eyes from rolling down her cheeks.

"You'll make me cry," she states with a weak laugh.

Anna smiles before she brushes her dry cheek with her thumb. "I believe your sister was very lucky to have you." She lowers her hand slowly, allowing Elsa to fully focus on the emotion that resonates behind her eyes when she finally says, "And I feel very lucky too, to have found you."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a true joy to write; quite the ride I didn't know it could be. I hope you guys can let me know what you think :) Now on to the next story!

_J'attendrai. Le jour et la nuit, j'attendrai toujours ton retour. Le temps passe et court en battant tristement dans mon cœur, et pourtant j'attendrai ton retour._

_I will wait. Day and night, I will wait forever your return. The time passes by and runs as it beats sadly in my heart, and yet I will wait for your return._

—Lucienne Delyle, "J'attendrai."

*****

_Arendelle, Norway - 1884_

Ballroom parties had never been her thing. They were crowded evenings that ended in boisterous amounts of dancing if the drinking was copious, which it always was no matter how often these parties appeared to be moderated. But they made Anna happy, and whatever made her sister happy Elsa had a hard time denying.

She stood in front of the mirror, studying herself: her skin, her body, her hair. It gave her a distinct sense of discomfort that all of it had remained the same. She had not grown used to it just yet, not when her sister kept aging right before her eyes. Still, Elsa liked to imagine that she had changed. That her poise had become that of a woman and no longer a girl. That there was more maturity around her eyes despite the lack of telltale lines, and that she held more wisdom than her twenty-four year-old self ever had. But the longer she stood in front of the mirror the more she began to think it was all a trick of the light; a mirage made out of longing and desperation.

Elsa touched the french braid that circled her head. The style reminded her of her coronation day, but the anguish and fear that had once stared back at her were no longer there. She ran her hands down the bodice of her dress. Blue, magical crystals glinted under the warm light of the room. Her forearms: they were bare despite gloves being a must-wear on evenings like these. She knew the only other woman who would not wear gloves tonight would be Anna. She wasn't too fond of them either.

With one last look, Elsa stepped away from the mirror. The music coming from the main hall reached her ears as soon as she walked out of the room. It reigned over the castle, resonating against its walls. She grabbed the loose fabric of her dress and lifted it up slightly as she made her way down the spiraling stairs; alone but calm. Because of her innate proclivity for more vacant spaces, Anna always gave Elsa a few minutes extra to join her. Sometimes she took her up on it, sometimes all Elsa wanted was to welcome their guests by her side.

At the entrance of the grand ballroom she greeted Erik, a young steward who worked under Kai's wings for years before the man who'd loyally served their family for three generations passed away at the age of seventy-eight.

"How's it looking?" she asked him regardless of being able to take a look at it herself from where she was.

He stood straight as a board with his chin up and his hands behind his back. He adhered to royal protocol as strictly as Kai always did. "The usual, Your Majesty." Elsa gave him a playfully scornful look. She'd told him many times not to call her that. She was not the queen, Anna was. But her sister had been adamant that she held onto the title—for entirely selfish purposes. "It keeps my conscience clean," she'd said, "That way I can still come to you for advice without feeling guilty about it. Besides, I can't exactly call you my _king_ , love."

"How is Anna handling it?"

The ghost of a smile appeared on Erik's lips. "Better than any of us ever could."

Elsa grinned. "The usual then."

He responded with a wider smile and a courteous nod.

Elegant and richly dressed guests swayed and moved under the bright lights of the main hall. Embroidered skirts swept over the polished floor, the tips of light pumps poking out from time to time to make an appearance. Elsa greeted and held brief conversations with everyone who spotted her: ambassadors, dukes, barons, princesses. Her eyes kept wandering, searching for her sister. She did not spot her until she had walked farther inside, weaving her way through the party crowd. Anna was standing to the side, having a seemingly deep conversation not with an ambassador, a duke, a baron or a princess, but with Greta, a young girl who worked as part of the kitchen staff.

Elsa approached carefully without wishing to be seen. She reached her sister's side and waited for a pause in their conversation to lean close enough that her voice wouldn't be carried away by the music.

"Hi, sweetheart."

Mildly startled, Anna turned around. "Elsa!" Neglecting the formalities of her role as queen, she enveloped her in a hug.

"You look beautiful," Elsa murmured.

"Oh, please _,_ " Anna said. "I look _old_. Greta already tried convincing me otherwise but I'm not having it. I have eyes and a mirror, you know?"

"That is not true, Your Majesty," Greta quipped from the other side of her. She spoke demurely, and Elsa could tell she felt out of place. Anna must have held her off while she was doing her rounds. Her sister loved chatting after all, and Elsa had yet to meet a staff member who hadn't been on the receiving end of Anna's loud musings.

"If you wish to go you can do so, Greta. I know how my sister can be sometimes."

Anna waved her off with a roll of her eyes but the younger girl simply giggled, curtsied deeply, and walked away.

"I know what you're doing," Anna told her as soon as the girl was gone.

"Really? And what is that?"

"You're trying to have me all to yourself."

Elsa laughed. "Yes, love. That is exactly what I'm doing."

Mischievous blue eyes looked straight at her. "I was, in fact, just waiting for you."

"Why? What's in your mind?"

"A break," Anna stated, hooking her arm with Elsa's and pulling her along. They greeted and held more conversations as they moved through the aristocratic society of Norway and its surrounding countries. They discussed trading deals in passing, heard the tail end of gossips, made promises to visit Copenhagen and Paris. They shifted around until they reached the destination Anna had in mind all along: the balcony.

The summer breeze soothed Elsa's warm cheeks as she felt her sister let go of her arm and walk towards the parapet. The crown shone above her head while Anna's gray hair appeared brighter under the pale moonlight, making its copper streaks fade away almost completely. Elsa drew closer until she was standing by her sister's side.

"It was getting stuffy inside, wasn't it?" said Anna.

"I could have cooled your body off if you'd asked me."

"I am too old for being this adventurous in public, love," she teased.

Elsa bumped her sister's shoulder. "You are not too old."

Anna sighed and looked away without saying anything more, driving Elsa to grab the hand that rested on the balcony's wall. She squeezed gently, feeling the soft but ragged skin of Anna's hand. It made her heart ache in pain. "You are _not_ too old," she insisted, her voice breaking at the last word.

Anna looked up at the moon, giving out an optimistic smile. It was then that Elsa noticed her eyes were brimming with tears. "It's okay to feel this way, isn't it? To feel like time's slipping away and still want to make the most out of it."

"Of course it is," Elsa reassured her. "Some may even say it's the best way of looking at things."

Her sister's smile broadened, bringing out more prominently the lines across her face. "You've always known what to say."

Elsa brought Anna's hand up to her lips. "Because I've always been the wise one."

She rolled her eyes. "The older we get the more vain you become. You'll be unbearable by the time you reach a hundred and fifty."

Elsa laughed before touching the back of her hand with her cheek. She leaned into it, relishing the comfort this simple touch gave her. "I love you," she whispered. It came out of nowhere, but it was the only thing occupying her mind and her heart right now. The single and encompassing truth that she loved Anna with every piece of her being.

The back of her sister's fingers brushed her cheek. "Even if I'm wrinkly and more stubborn than when I was twenty-one?"

"Even if you're wrinkly and more stubborn than when you were twenty-one."

A triumphant look. "I knew you couldn't resist me."

Elsa laughed heartily, bringing their hands down but making sure they were interlaced together before she took a step back towards the ballroom. "Come on then," she said. "Let's see if you're not too old to dance with me."

*****

_Paris, France - 1952_

It is a late, quiet night.

Outside, it rains. Tender droplets of late fall that can be seen from the window of the bar and don't make a sound as they hit the ground. A moving picture in the making.

Inside, Elsa listens to the music coming from the record player: the smooth sound of a piano accompanied by Billie Holiday's subtle voice. Anna had started the record not too long ago, when the room had begun to quiet down to a murmur of indiscernible exchanges. 

There is a couple sitting at a table near the corner. Two men sitting at the bar. And there is Anna, wiping dry the glasses she's just brought from the back. Elsa watches her with rapture, but says nothing for a while. She's lost herself to her own senses; seeing but not perceiving; allowing the music to drown everything out completely. She observes the way Anna wipes each glass the same, like a mechanism of sorts, before she places them on a shelf behind her—three at a time.

The silence between them is a soothing one, as easy-going as the way the notes flow out of the player and fill in the space. Elsa fiddles with the stem of her glass and maintains Anna's eyes when they finally connect with hers.

"What are you thinking about?" the girl asks.

"Absolutely nothing," Elsa responds, chuckling nervously at her own silly confession.

"How does one think of nothing?"

"I... don't know, actually. It just happens."

Anna tilts her head. "What a curious person you are."

She feels the urge to laugh. "I think we've established that."

The girl goes back to work with a smirk. A trumpet plays a lonely, mellow tune before the song ends and another one begins. 

Suddenly, Anna is speaking again. "I think that is what attracted me to you."

"What?" she asks, "My curious behavior?"

"Yes." Anna grins. "Kind of."

Elsa leans closer despite the fact that Anna is still a handful of steps away from her on the other side of the bar. She has not stopped working on those glasses. Her movements are slow and calculated, and Elsa is beginning to wonder if she is prolonging this—keeping her distance—on purpose. A tease, she thinks. This girl is a tease.

"What _did_ exactly draw you to me, Anna?" she decides to ask. In the months they have known each other they have never discussed this. But Elsa is suddenly craving to know, her curiosity bubbling over like water under the heat that is her own attraction.

"Well," Anna says, "The mystery of course." She sets the glass down, drapes the towel over her shoulder, and takes the few steps that will shorten the distance between them. She leans on the surface of the bar as well, smiling when Elsa is visibly affected by their proximity. "But I have not solved it."

"What will happen when you do?" she asks lowly.

Anna averts her eyes for a moment, considering perhaps an answer to this. It causes Elsa to nibble at her lower lip in expectation. She doesn't release it until Anna has turned back to her and has followed the subtle action with a keen gaze. "Nothing," Anna responds distractedly before she looks up and into her eyes. "I will still be here, and you will be here too... if that is what you wish."

"Don't be so sure of that."

"Of what?"

"Of you wanting to stick around."

A frown mars her brow. "Is that not my decision?" she asks gently, although there is little room for an answer. So Elsa smiles despite the tinge of sadness that threatens to take over. She doesn't want to hold onto this as if it were a certainty. She is terrified of certainties by now; of promises that she knows will be broken by destiny, by the laws of nature, by death itself.

An index finger on the back of her hand pulls her out of her own mind. "Have a glass of wine with me," Anna tells her.

"But you're still working."

She shakes her head, points at the two men sitting on the other side of the bar. "Monsieur Dupont only drinks three glasses of cognac and Monsieur Picard only drinks one because he says his wife is a mean lady who does not like the smell of alcohol." She glances at the couple who's engaged in a seemingly pleasant conversation. Their heads are leaning close to each other, the woman's finger is tracing patterns on the man's bare forearm. "Mademoiselle Dejardin brings a new gentleman almost every week," Anna says in a much lower voice. "And she never drinks more than two Chartreuse on the rocks."

"Never?" Elsa asks in disbelief.

"Never."

"What about the gentlemen that come with her?"

A smile creeps over her face. "They are always too busy being enchanted by her to drink too much." Anna leans back resolutely. "What I am trying to say is that I don't have to serve any more for the rest of the night."

Elsa considers this for a moment before she agrees to a glass. "I trust that Mademoiselle's charms will keep you from drinking too much as well," she says as Anna begins to pour.

The girl gives her a mirthful look. "Her charms do not work for me."

"How so?"

She sets the bottle down and looks at Elsa with clear, penetrating eyes. "Because it is not Mademoiselle I am interested in." She then clinks their glasses together while Elsa feels the beginnings of a blush creep over her face that she attempts to lessen by taking a large sip of wine. The alcohol warms her body in a rush, sending an uncharacteristic shiver down her spine.

"Have you always preferred a Merlot?" Anna asks her.

"No," she answers, still not fully recovered from her previous statement. "I drank much less before. We did like to have _gløgg_ during winter, however. But that was a long time ago."

"You say that a lot," Anna points out.

"Say what?"

"A long time ago."

Elsa fiddles with the stem of her glass. "Because it _was_ a long time ago," she says sincerely, hoping that Anna may catch a sliver of the truth— _her_ truth—behind it.

"Does time work differently for you or something?"

"That's a strange question to follow with."

Anna shrugs. "It is all I have."

"You know, I'm starting to think that it does work differently for me."

"I knew it," she says with a smug nod. She steps away without notice when the two men sitting at the bar stand up to leave. Elsa watches their exchange from afar, noticing the way she gives them both a cordial but tight-lipped smile. Nothing like the playful, cheeky grins she's always giving Elsa. It makes her feel special in a childish way.

Anna has barely returned from wiping the rest of the bar and taken another sip of her wine when Mademoiselle Dejardin and her gentleman friend stand up as well. Her curly, shiny black hair cascades down her back as she arranges her fur coat. The golden bracelet around her wrist twinkles under the warm light. The gentleman stands by with a look of reverence in his eyes, waiting for her to lead the way.

Mademoiselle Dejardin glances at Anna on their way out. " _Merci, mon chou._ " Her voice is low and sultry, like dripping honey.

The girl raises an awkward hand. " _À bientôt._ "

As soon as the door has closed behind them Elsa turns to her. " _Mon chou?_ " she teases.

Anna rubs the back of her neck. "Mademoiselle Dejardin has come here for a long time," she explains, "She knows my uncle very well, and she knows he calls me _chouchou_. So she... decided to call me that... too."

Elsa giggles when she notices the color on her cheeks. "Are you sure you're immune to her charms?" The white towel Anna had been using earlier hits her chest, making her laugh harder. It is just the two of them now, while the music of Billie Holiday's record goes on weaving softly through the air and the rain continues to pour down outside.

The girl nearly downs the rest of her wine before she goes to grab the broom, round the bar and set about to sweep the room. She is feigning indifference, but the corners of her lips betray her when Elsa will not stop giggling. So Elsa tries something different instead. She walks over to the record player; a cabinet that is bigger and newer than the gramophone Anna keeps in her room. She touches the knob lightly, turning up the volume enough so that Anna pauses her sweeping and looks at her curiously.

"Do you know how to dance?" Elsa asks, approaching her. 

"I have never been asked that before."

"So do you?"

She glances away. "No."

Elsa hums as she reaches for the handle of the broom and moves it to the side, setting it against a chair that's been placed upside down on a table. "You know," she tells her, "A _long_ time ago I had to learn how to dance." She grabs Anna's hands, placing the left one on her shoulder and keeping the right one intertwined with her own. "It was a different kind of dance. More ostentatious and a little less... intimate. But I think the basics are very much the same." They begin to sway to the music as Elsa guides them slowly from side to side. She has never danced this way before. This kind of music required an intimacy that Elsa had not been in touch with for years. And back when she had it, this music simply did not exist. "It's not so hard, is it?" Anna shakes her head in response, and Elsa has to keep herself from looking down at the lips that are shaping into a smile.

"I want to try something," Anna says.

"What is it?"

She bites her lower lip, tugging at Elsa's hand to give her a twirl that causes them both to giggle. They step back into each other's arms; back into this intimacy they have made for themselves alone in this empty bar.

"I used to watch people from outside the window," Anna muses out loud after a while. "Men and women dancing just like this. I remember I always asked myself if I would ever find someone who would want to dance with me."

"Why would anyone not want to dance with you?"

She shrugs but says nothing. It makes Elsa pull her a little bit closer by the waist; hold her gaze for just a little bit longer, too. "I bet there would be a line of people wanting to dance with you if you asked."

"Good thing we are closed then."

Elsa laughs, losing her rhythm for a moment. There is this warmth spreading through her body; this vehement state of happiness that touches and elevates her. It is the kind of warmth that makes her fear of certainties dwindle and die down, like a flame in the rain. She could spend the rest of the night like this, she thinks: dancing with Anna, talking silly little things. But there is a spark behind the girl's eyes that brings them slowly to a halt. The air escapes through her lips. The sight speeds up the beating of her heart. Elsa knows this spark too well, from all the times she saw it reflected in her own sister's eyes—

" _Chouchou_."

The girls jump at the interruption. Anna turns around but—to Elsa's surprise—doesn't let go of her hand. Her uncle is standing by the door that leads to the back of the bar, the one that acts simultaneously as their access to their home upstairs. " _C'est très tard,_ " he tells the two of them. Elsa looks down at the floor in embarrassment. It _is_ quite late.

"I should get going," she tells Anna.

"And I should finish cleaning," the girl replies sheepishly.

Elsa moves back towards the bar to grab her things but is stopped by a hand holding onto hers. "Will you come tomorrow?" Anna asks her.

She squeezes in response. "Of course."

**~~~**

_"Horloge!"_ Elsa begins, whispering theatrically in the middle of a mildly crowded bar with the best French she can muster. _"Dieu sinistre, effrayant, impassible..."_

_"Souviens-toi!"_ Anna points at her triumphantly with the hand that's holding an empty whiskey glass. "Charles Baudelaire."

"How did you guess so quickly?" she nearly whines.

"I learned it in school."

"That's not fair."

"You chose a famous poem written by a French man," Anna says with a laugh, "You did this to yourself." She steps away after this, reaching back for the bottle of Cointreau she keeps opening for the gentleman sitting to Elsa's left. It was full when she'd arrived. Now, almost two hours later, it is almost at its end.

Elsa has come, just as she'd promised, with an invitation sitting at the tip of her tongue eager to slip out. She's brought a book along with her, just like she has taken to doing lately, for when Anna is too busy working the bar. History, philosophy, poetry; anything she can get her hands on. The book sitting next to her _noisette_ , a small cup of espresso with a few added drops of milk (alcohol two days in a row does not sit well with her), is an anthology of poems. She'd found it while strolling the riverside of the Seine and bought it from the _bouquinistes_ —sellers who would set up by the river, smoking cigarettes and chatting amongst themselves while passersby stopped and looked through the large wooden boxes filled with antiquarian books. In other words, they sold books published when she still ruled and lived in Arendelle. Books that brought her back to her home's library and those summer afternoons when Anna used to lie by her side.

Elsa enjoyed poetry, even if many times she found herself reading a piece over and over again in order to look past the words printed on the page and into the meaning behind them. It was admittedly hard. She lacked the imagination her sister possessed in heaps. She was the maker; always. If Anna wanted a horse with wings, Elsa created it. If she wanted snowflakes on her braids, Elsa would provide them for her. If Anna wanted to see magic, Elsa only had to ask her to watch.

Yet, here was this girl, pushing her boundaries, challenging her to imagine the invisible because she did not know yet that all Elsa had to do was manifest it. She was always asking, always curious to know what Elsa thought. And Elsa reveled in it. Because Elsa got to learn about her through her silence incited by listening almost as much as she got to learn through her spoken words.

And it was in every nook and cranny of this learning that she finally realized she had fallen in love. Which is why the invitation to her apartment sat dangerously close to coming out tonight.

Elsa needed the privacy. She needed to tell the truth she could no longer bear to hide.

"Okay," Anna said as soon as she was back from helping her uncle with a few refills. "Did you like the poem?"

She blinks a few times. "I did not get to read it all."

A playful smile appears on the girl's face. "Where you thinking about nothing again, Elsa?"

"No," she drags out, blushing. "Why don't you tell me what it is about?"

"It is about a clock."

Elsa glares at her.

"And time," Anna adds, "a sinister god, terrifying and... _impassible._ " She touches her chin. "How does one say _impassible_ in English? Anyway, it doesn't matter. It tells you to remember, but remember what?"

"You've lost me."

She giggles. "I lost myself. I don't remember the poem very well."

Elsa turns the book around so that it faces Anna, who glances around at her customers before taking a peak at the poem. Her lips move absentmindedly while her eyes slowly make their way down the page. Elsa finds the sight incredibly endearing.

"Ah, yes," she says when she's finished, then hums. "What did you say about time yesterday?"

"That it works differently for me?"

Anna nods. "I think it worked differently for Monsieur Baudelaire, too."

_You mean he's immortal?_ she almost asks, but bites her tongue. "You're not making any sense, sweetheart." She quickly bites into her lips. The word's escaped her without Elsa meaning to, but Anna only responds by glancing at her with wide and curious eyes, and the corners of her lips twitching with a smile.

"What I meant to say," Anna begins slowly, licking her lips, "Is that I think he knows time is always slipping away. That is why he repeats the same thing— _remember_." She places her index finger on the page, as if she were about to read out loud from it. "Remember that time is greedy, that it takes away from us, and that one day it will say 'It is too late'."

The words sink into Elsa's conscience, drawing an indiscernible exhale out of her lips. The passing of time is both her companion and her foe. She knows it intimately. She has looked into its eyes and demanded it give her answers. But the passing of time is an abyss, pitch-black and terrifyingly silent, and the answers Elsa once sought out came back to her in reverberating echoes dripping red with pain.

So what of time? Has she not learned not to waste it in fear? That it will slip away regardless of whether she does something or not; regardless of her existence, regardless of Anna's existence. Regardless of whether reincarnation exists or not; regardless of second chances; regardless of the eternal essence that is love. It will slip away like sand through her fingers, and she will not waste a moment of it any longer watching it go.

Because tonight, Elsa feels ready.

She reaches slowly for Anna's hand. "Would you like to come home with me tonight?"

There is an answer in the way the hand beneath hers flips over in order to welcome it. She watches the way their hands fit together, so familiar a picture yet so foreign a feeling, and for a sweet and precious moment, Elsa can't think of anything else.

**~~~**

They've come back to the apartment in Anna's baby blue Renault. Elsa has been twiddling her thumbs almost the entire time, looking out the window at the passing lights, taking deep, calming breaths. Apprehensive of Anna's reaction to the truth, she keeps wondering if this will be the first and last time she gets to see this side of her. This tiny home she's created for herself, made up of memories of her past and present life. A space that reveals more than it conceals, if only one knew what to look for.

A warm hand touches hers. "We are here," Anna tells her.

Elsa nods but doesn't make a move to exit.

"Are you okay?"

"Just a little bit nervous," she confesses.

"You don't do this often, do you?"

She glances over to find her sporting a serious expression. "Do what?"

"Bring ladies to your home."

Elsa gapes. " _Anna!_ "

The girl sniggers. "It is fine, don't be nervous," she assures her with a grin, "I don't mind messes."

And although her apartment is borderline pristine, Elsa can't help but do a quick inspection from where they both stand by the door. The bed is made and intact; the paintings—copies and originals—she's accumulated throughout the years hang squarely on her walls; the books are in their pertaining shelf; the Turkish rug has no creases and no stains; the items on her nightstand and her vanity remain in their usual orderly arrangement. But as she watches Anna slowly step inside, taking everything in, unease begins to bubble up in her throat. The air escapes her and she feels helpless. As if by opening the door to her home Elsa has given up entirely the control she once had over her own truth. As if she's yielded to the night, its unfolding and its consequences, without a chance of going back.

"It is not messy," is the first thing that Anna says and Elsa allows herself to breathe.

"You know I don't like mess," she responds.

"That is true." She turns back around, settling her gaze on Elsa. "But you never told me that, did you?"

She shakes her head slowly. "It seems like you just... knew."

Anna nods pensively, then takes a few steps towards her while Elsa catches once again that familiar glint behind her eyes. It grows stronger the closer she gets and for a second, Elsa can't do nothing but watch in a trance.

"Would you like something to drink?" she blurts out before she clears her throat. "I have water or... wine. Cider perhaps, but I'm not sure I'll have to check..."

The corners of Anna's lips twitch. "Wine will be okay."

Elsa disappears into the kitchen, barely able to conceal the small intakes of breath she keeps taking in order to keep herself under control. Her heart is leaping out of her chest. She is nervous out of her own mind. She'd always known this was going to be hard, but she never knew it would have her on the verge of freezing her kitchen's counter. Yet there she stands, with her hands clenching and her eyes shut tight. She tries to think of her sister, of the things she would tell Elsa so that she would calm down. But the image in her mind shifts, twists and becomes one with the girl standing in the other room, and Elsa's air escapes her lungs in a pang of sorrow.

Fearful that Anna will come in to check on her, she begins searching for two glasses and a bottle of wine with shaky hands. Magic simmers below the skin of her fingertips as she struggles to keep her emotions at bay while somewhere in the back of her mind she tells herself that red wine shouldn't be chilled. The absurdity of this makes Elsa shake her head as she leaves the kitchen behind.

She finds Anna standing before her vanity. Feigning casualty, she places the two glasses and the bottle on a small table by the sofa no one's ever sat on except for herself, but when Anna doesn't make a move, she decides it is best to approach her.

The girl acknowledges her with a quick glance before Elsa notices the object that's held her captivated. The lacquered rosewood of the box that once held her necklace has lost a bit of its shine. The golden paint of Arendelle's crocus has a few scratches across its shape. Anna lifts it up gently, almost reverently, and the sight makes Elsa feel as though she's lost her leverage. For she is suddenly being pulled in two directions, between the present and the past.

"This box," Anna murmurs, "It looks so familiar."

She closes her eyes for a moment.

"Elsa?"

She opens them to find Anna watching her closely. A question is forming right below the surface.

"Wh-why does it sometimes feel like..."

"Like what?" Elsa pleads.

Anna looks into her eyes, reaches deep into her heart and doesn't let go. "Like we have known each other for a long time."

She wavers. Her mind is closing in on itself, clouding her ability to respond with coherence. She begins to say something before she stops herself. Her gaze shifts away in the direction of her nightstand. There is an answer sitting on the surface of it; a portrait miniature that leans against the liquor bottle filled with flowers Anna is constantly giving her for that intended purpose.

Elsa doesn't have it in her to grab her by the hand and take her there. But she doesn't need to. Because the girl is already walking over.

She holds her breath as she watches Anna take a look at the small portrait of her sister. A painting that has been blurred and darkened by time's passing, but that is discernible nonetheless. She was thirty when she had it made but Elsa still looks at it and sees her at every age: at eighteen, at twenty-five, at forty, at sixty-eight. Elsa has memorized every line, every curve and every delicate detail of it. And she's held onto it, hoping it will last her an entire lifetime.

Anna puts the portrait down slowly with an indecipherable expression on her face. She stares at a spot on the floor for a prolonged period of time in dreadful silence until Elsa braves a step closer. When she looks up her eyes are just as unfathomable.

A lump forms in Elsa's throat.

"There is a lot I need to tell you."

She guides her back to the sofa where they sit down with a few inches set in between them. The girl remains impassive but for the frown that is beginning to form on her face.

"Anna..."

Her gaze travels up again, fixing itself on Elsa. The cloudiness is suddenly gone, replaced by a mixture of confusion and vulnerability. "Who are you?"

"I am Elsa," she responds, ignoring the pain this question has elicited. "I am... a former queen, and the bridge between magic and human beings."

The girl blinks numerous times. "What?"

Elsa takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Must the truth be so liberating and dreadful at the same time? "I am not what you think I am, Anna."

"I know that now." She looks down at her hands resting on her lap. "I think a small part of me knew that all along."

"How could you have possibly guessed?"

"Because you talk weird sometimes," she replies honestly, "And you really do say 'a long time ago' a lot, and you talk about the past in a way I have never heard anyone else doing. And your sister..." She shakes her head. "The box. The dream I had..." Her frown deepens. "I don't understand any of this."

Elsa doesn't resist the urge to reach out, but she does so slowly, giving Anna the chance to deny her touch if she wishes to. When she doesn't pull away, however, Elsa feels a tinge of hope well up in her chest.

"Will you let me explain?"

The girl nods weakly.

Mustering every little trace of courage left in her, Elsa finally unburdens herself of the truth. "I was born with magical powers in eighteen-seventeen," she begins, "in Arendelle, Norway, to King Agnarr and Queen Iduna. My sister's name is Anna, and we were separated for thirteen years when I was just eight. We lost our parents when I was eighteen and I became queen at that age." She pauses to see how Anna is taking this but she is met with more stoicism and more silence. So gulping, she continues. "When I was twenty-four we left the kingdom searching for the source behind my powers. I... was reckless with some of my decisions. I went too far. And when we returned, I wasn't the same. I became the bridge between two worlds but in the process I became something else, too."

"You don't age," Anna states.

"I don't... die. So to speak. But my immortality is finite."

"So time does work differently for you," she points out in disbelief. "I thought you were just going along with my bad joke."

Elsa smiles dimly. "I wish I was."

Anna grows quiet again. The hand Elsa holds in hers is limp and nonreciprocal, but she decides to be comforted by the fact that this is still better than the complete absence of touch.

"And your magic powers," the girls mutters. "How—what are they?"

Instead of telling, Elsa shows her. She places her right hand on the table and feels a tingling sensation begin at the tip of her fingertips as the surface is soon covered in a thin coat of ice. She doesn't remove her hand until the frost has reached the glasses and the bottle of wine as well.

" _Woah_ ," Anna whispers, eyes wide and mouth agape. _As long as it is not fear_ , Elsa thinks. "Have you ever... hurt anyone?"

She looks away in shame. "My sister."

For the first time since she's reached out, Elsa feels a gentle squeeze in her hand. "The accident?"

"Yes." She doesn't have the desire to mention that she hurt her not once, but twice. And that the memory of the second time weighs too heavily on her heart for words to be able to describe it.

"I am sorry."

"Why?"

"Because you hurt your sister," she says matter of factly, "And I know how much you loved her."

"It's in the past," Elsa reassures her. She's come to realize that is all one can do when facing the memory of pain: remembering it belongs to the past.

They grow quiet again. Elsa doesn't need to look at her to know she is processing everything that's been said, but the silence still gnaws at her in the form of creeping desperation. This is why she doesn't conceal her relief when Anna opens her mouth to speak again.

A relief that is short-lived.

"What am I, then?"

"What do you mean?"

Anna finally retrieves her hand in order to cross her arms over her midriff. "I am not dumb, Elsa. I can see myself in your sister. So what does that make _me_?"

She lowers her eyes. "I'm not sure I have a real answer to that."

The girl sighs. "So many years of wisdom and you don't know," she grumbles.

"I did not plan any of this, if that is what you think," Elsa says defensively. "I did not come to Paris or went into that bar looking for you. It just happened."

"It just happened," she repeats.

"Yes."

The shift happens in an instant. What was once the spark of a fiery reaction in Anna's eyes has now become a well of sadness. Its depth pulls Elsa in, robbing her of air. "Why did you wait so long to tell me all this?" she asks her.

"Because I was terrified, Anna." She dares inching closer despite the protective stance Anna is still holding onto and, for once, she doesn't remind Elsa of her sister. She reminds her of herself. "I've never told the truth to anyone else before."

"Why me?" she asks in a small, pleading voice.

Elsa pauses. It all amounts to this. All these years tarnished by loneliness, all these months realizing what it's like to rediscover happiness. It is the reason why Elsa could no longer bear to keep her secret in the shadows; the reason why she saw every other city as a brief destination and why she's made a home out of Paris. The reason why Elsa has finally yielded to the night the same way she has yielded to Anna.

"Because I'm in love with you."

She notices the way Anna's breath gets caught in her throat, the way a new emotion ignites behind her eyes. But Elsa presses on, knowing this could very well be the only chance she'll get to have.

"What I have just told you doesn't turn _you_ into anything," she tells her. "You were you before we met, and you will continue to be you whether you decide to let me stay in your life after this night. I fell in love with _you_. With what you are and who you are. With your bad jokes and your big knowledge, and your thing for stealing flowers and your love for music... I always thought I'd never get to be happy again, but you opened my eyes, Anna. You made me realize that love is not this singular, lineal thing. That I can love in many different ways and that I don't have to forget about the past to be able to live in the present."

Anna lowers her arms, but with her eyes still cast down not a word leaves her lips.

"I know this is a lot to take in," Elsa admits softly. "And I know that who I am is not an easy thing to understand. My powers, it took me years to stop being afraid of them. And this... thing, this... _curse_... it has taken me years to accept it. I always thought I could go the rest of my life hiding the truth from the world if only I kept my distance. But then you happened to me and I just... I couldn't bring myself to do it anymore."

When she falls silent and is left with nothing else to say, Anna slowly begins to stand up. Her expression is still one of being lost in thought, and Elsa knows better than to follow after her when she walks towards the window that faces the street. Relentless and impassible, the city goes on fulfilling its own destiny. It shimmers with the light that radiates off the streets; with the pale light of the moon.

"You say you don't know why you came to Paris." At last, Anna faces away from the window and back towards her. "Do you mean that?"

Elsa stands up, taking a couple of steps closer. "Of course I did."

She nods, then looks out again. Elsa closes the remaining distance between them until she is standing a few feet away from her and the window.

Seconds drift in silence before Anna finally speaks again. "Part of me keeps telling me that I should leave," she confesses, causing Elsa's shoulders to drop in dejection. "Because you are right, this is a lot to take in and it is hard to understand it all in one night. Some things I'm not sure I ever will... But there is one thing I keep thinking about that won't let me think about anything else. And I am having trouble going against it."

"May I ask what that is?"

The light coming from the window shifts its shadows when Anna turns and sets her gaze on Elsa. The loose strands of hair that escape her messy bun glint under the moonlight as if they were made of silver. "Something made you come to Paris and we don't know what."

Elsa nods dumbly.

Clear, blue eyes watch her closely. "Tell me, Elsa. Do you believe in fate?"

She mulls this over. "Sometimes I'm not sure if fate is something real or if it is something we make for ourselves."

A tender smile blossoms on Anna's face. It is as though she had been expecting that answer all along.

"I believed in it the moment I saw you." She distracts herself by tapping her fingers against the windowsill, looking down at them instead of at Elsa. "All I could think about was how silly it felt, because fate sounds silly when it comes from your life and not from books."

"What changed your mind then?"

"Nothing," Anna responds, finally dropping her hand to the side. "I decided to forget about fate and focus on how you made me feel."

"Anna..."

"I want to know you, Elsa." She approaches slowly, every step as premeditated as the words she speaks. "Everything you want to tell me. Even the things I might not understand." They're sharing the same space now, but not a single part of them is touching. "I think this might take a while," Anna whispers, and warmth reaches Elsa's skin. "But we have a while... don't we?"

Elsa feels the air being pulled out of her lungs in one aching, tender motion. Here Anna is, with the moon shining in her eyes, willing to take the leap with her; willing to love with as much ardent resolution as her sister once did. Elsa knows nothing about fate. She knows nothing about dying and being born again, about the way two universes collide, about what is meant to be and what is not. The only thing she knows is that she'd rather spend another lifetime of loving, than to forever wonder what could have been like to love again.

A hand reaches out before it touches her cheek. Elsa closes her eyes, leans into it, and when Anna's lips press gently against hers for the first time, it takes everything in her not to fall apart in her arms. She kisses Anna back as she feels tears prick the back of her eyelids. She cradles her face, pulling her closer. But Anna is gentle with her actions, lingering in every touch of their lips, every nibble, every flicker of her tongue. And Elsa lets her. She gives in. She yields. Every cell of her being screams joy, anguish and longing. For every year she spent yearning for what she lost had been another year she spent dreaming of another chance. And here it finally was, in the shape of a girl who at once held the essence of her sister, and another person. A stranger who became a friend; a friend who became a lover; and a lover who became Elsa's new meaning for wanting to live this immortal life of hers.

*****

_Bjorbekk, Norway - 1954_

Elsa wakes up to the sensation of soft lips trailing across her shoulder. She stirs, tilting her head to the side. The kisses resume slowly, from the back of her neck to the tender spot below her ear while the arm that's wrapped around her waist tightens, pulling her closer against the warm body behind her.

" _Bonjour, chérie,_ " Anna murmurs against her skin.

Elsa hums, and smiles. She turns around to find a pair of bright, discerning eyes. " _Bonjour,_ " she croaks happily. She has grown used to being the sleepy one in the morning.

The girl peppers her face with kisses. "You told me to wake you up at seven," she reminds her.

"How dutiful of you."

"I do what I can."

She giggles before she turns fully around and burrows into Anna's warmth. She breathes in with contentment, relishing the way Anna envelopes her in a protective embrace. A few extra minutes of this won't hurt, she thinks.

"Don't fall asleep again."

"I won't," Elsa mumbles in the small space below the girl's chin.

"You are going to miss the train."

She nuzzles her neck. "I won't."

Anna hums. The moment stretches out in silence until Elsa becomes aware that she's beginning to fall asleep. She stirs again before she reluctantly pulls away.

"You fell asleep," Anna notes with a smug smile.

"Allow me the benefit of the doubt."

She chuckles. "If you say so."

With a deep inhale that gives way to a clearer state of wakefulness, Elsa scoots to the edge of the bed. She pulls the loose strands away from her face, lets her hair cascade down her back. Glancing over her shoulder she finds Anna watching with keen interest. She gives her a sultry look before she stands up.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Anna asks her with a more serious voice. "I can wait for you somewhere close, but far... to give you space."

She taps her chin. "Close but far," she repeats, "How does that work exactly?"

Anna crawls over to the edge of the bed and Elsa can't help but meet her halfway. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then decides to weave her hands through the entirety of it. She smiles as she watches Anna close her eyes in relish.

"It made more sense in my head," the girl mumbles.

"It is just a short train ride away," Elsa responds, massaging her scalp now, gently untangling the knots of Anna's messy, morning hair. "And I have my powers to protect me, remember?"

Anna opens her eyes. "Powers or no powers," she says, "I will still worry."

"And why is that?" she asks, cradling her freckled cheeks.

The girl places her hands on her waist and tugs gently at the silk fabric of her nightgown. In her eyes Elsa finds nothing but devotion, clear as the sunlight that is beginning to seep through the closed curtains of the window.

"Because I love you, you fool."

**~~~**

A snow flurry has started to fall by the time Elsa begins her slow ascent up the hill. She can feel the flakes on the skin of her face, on the back of her hands. The tail of her coat flutters with a sudden gust of wind, yet Elsa's steps are calm and deliberate. It has been a while since she has come, but the emotions that course through her body are as familiar as ever.

Snowy mountains fill her line of sight as she reaches the top. The vast land stretches out farther than she can see; a land that once belonged to their kingdom. Elsa takes it all in, breathes deeply, closes her eyes. The wind caresses her skin and this makes her smile. She would like to think Anna knows she's here.

To the left, a tall, lone stone stands amidst grass that has risen up to shelter it. Elsa approaches it slowly, feeling as if her chest were growing hollower the closer she got. The first of her tears reaches the ground by the time she's touching the surface that has been almost entirely smoothed out by the weather and the incessant passing of time. She leans her forehead against it, feels the way grief blankets over her the way the cold once did.

She kneels down by the frosted flowers she lay at the stone so many decades ago. She touches them lightly, happy to see they have withstood, before she looks up at the name that for so long she had not the courage to read.

"Hi, love," Elsa whispers, her voice getting lost in the wind. "I've missed you." She sets her hand on the grass covered in light snow before she leans against the stone.

For a while, she sits in silence, letting the flurries of snow play with her hair. She sits, unhurried, until the desire to speak resurfaces in her.

"There's so much to tell you that I don't even know where to begin, but I guess you know all of it already." She begins to dance her fingers in the air, forming magical snowflakes that mingle with nature's. "I met someone, Anna. She is... well, you know who she is." She flickers her wrist and watches an ice flower begin to grow in her hand. "I sometimes wonder how much of you is in her. And some days, when I look into her eyes, I still see you... But I try not to think too much about it. She is her own person after all. It would be selfish of me to do that."

The wind dwindles, giving way to Elsa's voice. She settles the first flower on the ground. "I couldn't believe it when I first saw her. It felt like a dream, you know? Like I was being delusional or like I was going crazy. But she remembers some things... they come to her in dreams. They're hard for her to understand but who could blame her, right?" She smiles at this, thinking back to all the mornings Anna has woken up from a dream that she explains to Elsa in murmurs against her skin. "I love her," she whispers, "I know you know that, too." Another flower blooms slowly. "She makes me so happy... She is very smart, like you. But she is far less clumsy. Who would've believed that?"

Elsa sighs as she places the second flower down. Tears are beginning to form in her eyes again as memories of her sister wash her anew. "I miss you," she repeats, "And I think about you every day." Her fingers move, but no magic forms. Elsa has to close her eyes at the weight of her sorrow. "I think about how unfair everything was... I was supposed to go first. I was never supposed to live without you." She wipes at her tears, takes a deep breath. "Yes, yes, I know," she chuckles, "You don't like to see me cry. I promise I'm trying my best here."

She calms herself down enough to begin shaping a new flower. While the first two were crocuses, this one is her best rendition of a water lily. "I hope you like this one," she says, "It's one of my favorites." She sets it slowly on the ground before she takes a moment to appreciate her handiwork. Then, she laughs a little. "I can still hear you asking me to do the magic, but this should be good enough for now, I think. I promise to come more often. I'll build a whole forest for you if you want."

She stands up gradually, shaking off her coat a few traces of snow, and placing her hand over Anna's name. She traces her fingers over the letters, hoping that wherever Anna is the touch will reach her. Tears roll down her cheeks as she remembers the last time she got to watch her sister smile. How it harbored the sun, that sweet, eternal smile of hers.

"I hope you are still waiting for me like you promised," Elsa murmurs. "When all of this is over... I hope I get to see you waiting for me on the other side."


End file.
